


Augment

by Decipher (Straggler)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alive Cole Anderson, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because of course he does, Because we're gonna be going to Zlatko's place, Body Horror, Gen, Hank Anderson Swears, How Do I Tag, That place be messed up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25855684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straggler/pseuds/Decipher
Summary: As soon as he walks into the office his eyes immediately go to a figurine no bigger than a standard ruler standing at the corner of the desk, the only thing in this room sticking out like a sore thumb and he can't help but curl up his lip in distaste as he points at it, 'The fuck is that?''Good of you to ask. This is your new partner, the pocket prototype sent by CyberLife.'(This story was written with the idea that Connor is a tiny itty bitty android prototype. It follows the timeline of the gameplay, more or less, but with a lot of changes to suit this one-shot.)
Relationships: Cole Anderson & Hank Anderson, Hank Anderson & Connor
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	Augment

**Author's Note:**

> Not gonna lie, I constantly have at least four pages of the Detroit: Become Human wiki open at all times for research as well as at least one play through video. I AM DEDICATED, OKAY. IT'S NOT AN OBSESSION.
> 
> ...
> 
> I'm kidding, it's already taken over my life. It's too late to deny it.

  
Hank's barely a foot in the bullpen when Jeff sticks his head out of his office and hollers for him to haul ass in there. He rolls his eyes and detours into the break room to get a cup of coffee, feeling like he's going to need it. They do this song and dance at least once a fortnight and 4 out of 5 times there's a good chance he's not going to like what Jeff has in store for him.

As soon as he walks into the office his eyes immediately go to a figurine no bigger than a standard ruler standing at the corner of the desk, the only thing in this room sticking out like a sore thumb and he can't help but curl up his lip in distaste as he points at it, 'The fuck is that?'

'Good of you to ask. This is your new partner, the pocket prototype sent by CyberLife.'

Hank lets out an explosive laugh, 'You fucking kidding me, right? I could squish that thing under my shoe.'

'I assure you, Lieutenant, you wouldn't be fast enough,' the doll talks back to him as it adjusts its tie and straightens out the cuffs of its jacket.

He scoffs, 'First of all, why the fuck would CyberLife even waste money creating something so small,' he says as he jabs a finger in the direction of the doll, 'and second of all, why me.'

The android shifts its posture so that its standing at attention, back straight and hands behind it. 'You were chosen as a viable candidate for a human-android partnership due to your work records, ability to adapt to different divisions as well as your seniority. As to the first part, those are details you are not privy to.'

Hank frowns and turns back to Jeff, 'What if I say no.'

'You can't,' he says with an equally unimpressed scowl, 'Elijah Kamski personally chose you to take lead with Connor on all cases involving androids for the foreseeable future. At this stage, their purpose is to watch and learn and test the range of their capabilities, as well as sending back any information to CyberLife that they might find useful.'

He groans and rolls his eyes but Jeff keeps talking, never minding the fact that he's being insubordinate to his captain.

'If the prototype is successful then CyberLife will launch into a full scale model production.'

'This is fucking bullshit. CyberLife wants to replace real cops with these plastic assholes. Seriously?'

Jeff scowls at him, 'I don't care that you don't like it, Hank. Build a bridge and get over it. Now get out and get to work,' he dismisses with a wave of his hand, turning back to his computer and ignoring them.

Hank fumes as he storms out of the office, hearing the android follow after him taking three steps for his singular stride. He knows Reed's noticed when he hear him burst out laughing.

'Holy shit, guess this means we won't be out of the job if all police androids start to look like this pint-sized thing.'

'Watch yourself, Reed. I'm not in the mood.'

'Awh, maybe you'll feel better once you finish playing with your doll,' he jeers and immediately falls back into raucous laughter. Hank rolls his eyes and ignores him as he keeps walking to his desk, setting his coffee down and booting up the computer, logging in and immediately pulling up the unfinished report from last night's investigation.

'Better watch yourself, prick,' he hears Reed say, 'I was damn good at punting the ball back in college,' he threatens and, damn, that sounds so juvenile. He would snort if he had the energy to deal with it.

The empty chair next to his desk starts moving and he turns to see the android standing on it and jump off to get onto his table. It straightens itself up and then says, 'I apologize if my presence inconveniences you, Lieutenant, but seeing as neither you nor I have a choice in the matter it would greatly benefit us to maintain a civil working relationship with one another.'

'Ugh,' he replies smartly and drinks the rest of his coffee in one go then gets up to get more. By the time he returns with another full cup, he sees the android interfacing with his computer and he hurries over to snap at it, 'Oi, get the fuck away from my computer. The desk next to mine is free; use that one instead.'

The android ignores him, 'Lieutenant, it may be worth returning to the crime scene of Carlos Ortiz's murder. I've noticed some discrepancies within your report and there's a chance I may be able to pick up something new for the investigation.'

The thought of returning to that hellhole makes him want to gag. 'Go by yourself; that place was a rotting mess,' he says as he takes a sip of his coffee to drive away the sense memory.

'Unfortunately, I'm unable to go on investigations on my own as I'm only a prototype and a police assistant; I would have no jurisdiction to enter the crime scene.'

Hank growls and really wishes he could just tell the android to go fuck itself but there had been something about the crime scene that unsettled him even though it seemed like a pretty open-and-shut case. He huffs and then turn his chair towards Ben's desk across the room, 'Ben! Is the house from last night still open?'

The other man makes a face that borders on disgust. Hank can relate very well. 'You actually wanna go back to that dump?'

He answers by jerking his head to the doll as an answer and sees Ben rolling his eyes in commiseration.

'Yeah, it's still open. But everything's already been bagged and tagged. Better hop to it if you wanna find anything new. If there's even anything new to find,' he finishes with a shrug.

'Thanks,' he grumbles as he picks up his cup of coffee and walks off, listening to the snickers of his workmates behind him as the doll practically runs to keep up with his pace. It feels petty and childish but he doesn't care enough to slow down.

\---

The place doesn't smell quite as bad now that the body is gone but it still smells like death. All the key evidence has been taken away and Hank can't see how they'd be able to find anything new when so much of the crime scene has already been stripped down to barely anything.

He keeps an eye on the android as it walks through the house and follows it when he hears the sound of the back door swinging open. Curious, he comes around the corner to see it jump from the door knob onto the gated entry, peering out at the unkempt yard.

'We think the killer must've gone out this way,' he grumbles to the android as he comes up to the door.

'Unlikely,' the android contradicts as it points to the footprints on the ground. 'Detective Collins has been the only person to come out this way.'

He rolls his eyes as he crosses his arms, 'The guy's been dead for 3 weeks; that's more than enough time for tracks to fade. It's been raining, too.'

'No, this type of soil would've retained a trace. Nobody's been out here a long time,' It says, adamant, and jumps off the gated door to return back inside.

Hank lets out a scoff even though he can't help but be surprised and a bit impressed at the insight. He doesn't know a damn thing about dirt and soil properties so this is definitely something new to add to the report.

He watches the android scrambling up to higher vantage points to take in more of the room, jumping from place to place as it scans the area. After a few more minutes of the doll parkouring around the house it turns to Hank and says, 'Based on the gathered evidence I found on the notes pertaining to the investigation and from your report, as well as through my own observations, I think I've figured out what happened.'

He snorts, 'Yeah? Well, shoot. I'm all ears,' he says as he crosses his arms again. He feels like he's wasting his time here but he can't help but be curious to find out what the android managed to glean from just being here for 5 minutes. Nothing's even fresh anymore, either.

The doll manages to successfully reconstruct the scene and walk him through everything it found on site. Hank doesn't want to admit it but he's a bit floored by their accuracy. Not that he'd say anything about it.

'Don't suppose you managed to figure out where that android disappeared off to, then?' He jeers a little bit as the android jumps off the chair and proceeds to walk away, eyes focused on something on the ground that Hank can't see.

'There are thirium trails on the floor. As you know, thirium evaporates in a handful of hours and becomes invisible to the human eye but as an android I do not have this problem. There's a hand print leading up to the attic there,' it says as it stands beneath the hatch leading up.

'What? No shit?' Hank says as he grabs the chair and brings it over, climbing up and sliding the hatch off. He feels something pull at his clothes and he looks down to see the android climbing up his body like a damn monkey. 'Oi, what the fuck.'

'Lieutenant, if you would allow me, I can search the attic for you.'

'Yeah, yeah, whatever. Don't use me as your jungle gym next time,' he warns as he helps the android up and watches them disappear out of sight.

It's quiet for such a long time Hank starts to feel nervous as he shouts up through the gap, 'Connor, what the fuck is going on up there. You taking a nap, or something?'

He strains his ears for something, anything, until he hears the android's voice shouting back, 'It's here, Lieutenant.'

'Holy shit,' he swears as he takes out his gun and immediately calls for backup. He's the only officer on site and he knows he's not gonna be able to bring an android in on his own. He doesn't fancy getting his ass kicked to kingdom come by attempting to climb up to arrest the android himself and despite the fact that Connor was actually useful in finding the killer, it doesn't change the reality that it's only 12 inches tall, the damn thing.

When he done calling for backup he yells for Connor to report.

'It's stress levels are climbing but there's no imminent danger of self-destruction.'

'Good, keep it that way!' He shouts and is thankful he can already hear the sirens coming closer to the house.

He hears somebody busting in through the door and Chris holler, 'Detroit Police!'

Sometimes he feels like his life is a soap opera.

\---

The android, the HK400, had been freaking out and on the verge of bawling its eyes out when they arrested it and got it down from the attic but now, with it cuffed up in the interrogation room, it's positively catatonic.

'Thing looks like it's got PTSD or some shit,' Hank notices after observing it for 15 minutes in the next room. The HK400 hasn't moved an inch since they sat it down and cuffed it to the table. He's pretty sure it hasn't even blinked once either, not that they need to but it's uncanny as all hell and creeps him out.

'It's a goddamn machine, Anderson. No such thing as PTSD for a bucket of bolts with legs,' Reed sneers as he jerks his head to the android. 'You wanna question it or do you want me to pick up the slack?'

He's about to tell Reed to bugger off when the doll turns around from where it had been standing by the 2-way mirror to look at him. 'Before you begin the interrogation, Lieutenant, may I request to join in? It may be worth having me in the same room. After all, we're both machines and I can detect fluctuations in its stress levels as well as monitor its behavior. If need be, I can also probe its memory to gather evidence.'

Hank had been on his way to outright denying the android from going in with him but with an argument like that he honestly can't find a damn good reason to say no. 'Fine, let's go,' he sighs as he picks up the case file and heads out of the room, ignoring the snicker from Reed when he hears little footsteps follow behind him.

He goes inside and the HK400 doesn't acknowledge him but as soon as Connor walks in through the door after him he catches the slightest curl of the android's fingers on the table. He waits for the doll to get up on the table before he sits down, flipping the file open on the table to stare down at the dead eyes of one Carlos Ortiz.

'Why d'you kill him?' He asks as he turns the page around to show it to the android. From the corner of his eye he can see Connor look at the photos before turning to watch the HK400 keenly, obviously seeing something he can't. 'What happened before you took the knife?'

It's not that he doesn't sympathize with the damn thing. If it were human then it was well within its right to defend itself against an attack, although the 28 stab wounds was more than a little excessive. But it's not human.

'How long were you in the attic?' He asks and sees Connor walk to the other side of Hank, still casually observing the other android, and he sees the twitch in the HK400's body, the tightening of its fists on the table. 'Why didn't you even try to run away?'

It's now that he notices the HK400's eyes aren't tracking anything but they're wide compared to the dull half-lidded look it had from just minutes before. Hank leans back in his chair and crosses his arms as he observes both of the androids, curious to see how this plays out.

Despite Connor's small size, it holds a position of power over the larger android, as if it's the bigger threat in the room than the human. He's not going to pretend he understands much of android psychology but he doesn't need to be a robot to see the HK400's stress levels climbing when Connor eventually stops its slow pacing to stand between them, right in the other android's line of sight.

Its posture is perfect, looking as if its 6 feet tall instead of a measly 12 inches.

The LED of the HK400 is cycling between red, yellow, red. He catches the sudden uptick in its breathing, the odd jerk of its shoulders and the slight shake in its jaw as if it's scared. Eventually, it talks.

'Why did you tell them you found me?' It asks as if Hank's not even in the room with them. 'Why couldn't you just have left me there?'

'I was programmed to assist in investigations regarding crimes involving androids. By informing them of your location, I accomplished my mission.'

 _Damn, that's pretty heartless_ , he thinks to himself as he watches them. He's amazed by the level of fear exuding off the HK400 and the complete apathy from Connor. 

'It would be in your best interest to tell us what happened.'

The HK400 shakes its head, eyes lost to the middle distance as if it's reliving a memory. 'He tortured me every day. I did whatever he told me but there was always something wrong.'

Hank grits his teeth against the words that wants to pour out of his mouth. The android talks like an abuse victim and he can't help but feel pity for it. He wants to press for more information but he knows this isn't his rodeo anymore; it's between the HK400 and Connor.

'What are they gonna do to me?' The android asks with a trembling voice, its whole body shaking and its eyes darting left and right and left and right. The mood shifts and suddenly the HK400's body tightens in fear as it lowers its voice into a bare whisper, 'They're going to destroy me, aren't they?'

He hopes Connor is taking notes; he can't follow the android's disjointed conversation, jumping from one thought to another. Maybe androids _can_ get PTSD of a sort.

'You will be deactivated, disassembled and analyzed to find if there are any faults or problems in your biocomponents. I have also been tasked to probe your memories so they can understand what happened.'

'You want my memories?' It asks quietly, their body stilling.

Hank starts to get a bad feeling. The HK400 before had shown all the symptoms of someone going through emotional shock but now it's looking like a caged tiger, coiled and ready to attack. He carefully unfolds his arms and braces his feet on the ground, getting himself ready to react for whatever's about to come hurtling his way.

'You want my memories?' It repeats, its expression going from fear to anguish as it strikes out and grabs onto Connor and squeezes tight, 'Then take them!'

'Hey!' He shouts as he goes to grab onto the android's arms, trying to pry them apart. He hears something crack and Connor's static-filled cry as the door bangs open behind him and a new pair of hands come into his vision to help him.

A loud explosion shocks him, his ears ringing, and he feels the give of the android's arms beneath his hands as the HK400 slumps to the side with a bullet-sized hole in the side of its head, blue blood spilling out. He pries the fingers apart and watches as Connor falls onto the table, thirium pooling out of him.

'Useless piece of shit,' Reed spits as he holsters his gun, 'First investigation and it's already broken.'

He lets Chris check on the HK400 and confirm that it's dead before taking off the cuffs and dragging it out, Reed offering no help whatsoever until Hank snaps at him to give the man a hand. Reed tells him to fuck off but he goes and picks up the android's feet anyway and they cart it out.

There's a trail of blue blood leading out the door and he's thankful that it's not red otherwise he might actually feel sick. Instead he feels nothing but tired exasperation as he turns to the doll and sees it trying its level best to get up on its hands and knees.

'You broken or what?' He asks gruffly as he stands with his hands on his hips. It's barely even the end of the first day and it might already be broken. He hopes Jeff won't have his hide for this; it's not his fault shit hit the fan. 'So much for being able to monitor its behavior.'

'You'll be glad to know that I was able to get all of its memories before Detective Reed shot it in the head while I was still connected to it. It was...unpleasant.'

He snorts, 'Wow, understatement of the week.' He watches the android attempt to stand only for its knee to buckle beneath it and send it back down. _God, what a pitiful sight_ , he thinks to himself. 'What's the point of you again? You took a hit and now you're down for the count.'

It tries again to stand and is marginally more successful this time, albeit a little lopsided. 'The whole point of a police prototype is that I'm built to be sturdier than most androids, however, due to my current size it puts me at a slight disadvantage to other androids.'

He rolls his eyes, 'Yeah, again, what's the point? I don't see why they couldn't just jump straight into a full sized model.' He feels like it would've saved them a lot of trouble in the long run but he's not the CEO of a multi-million dollar company so what does he know?

'They're...working out the kinks, so to speak, for the eventual r̴e̵l̶e̷ase of a full sized model,' it says slowly, the odd bit of static coming through in its speech. 'CyberLife is not in the business of sinking millions of dollars into a full scale prototype before all functions have been properly tested and adapted for,' it pauses here to stare down at its blue-stained hands, 'I will admit that being a full sized model would've had its benefit in this situation.'

He lets out a loud guffaw, 'No shit, Sherlock.'

'My name is Connor.'

'Whatever. So what? Do I take you to CyberLife for repairs or...' he trails off, waiting for the android to fill in the blanks for him.

'I sustained only mild to moderate damage to some of my biocomponents. They can be self-repaired with time. I will also require some thirium to replenish what I've lost.'

'Alright, come on,' he says as he holds a hand out and jerks his head to the door, 'I'll take you up to the android station; there should be some thirium in storage there you can have.'

The doll gingerly sits down onto the palm of Hank's hand and lets itself be carried through the building to the back of the bullpen just behind Jeff's office. He hears people laughing behind his back again but honestly, he's tired enough not to pay it much attention and old enough not to care. Gone are the days where self-consciousness was a thing for him.

There are two other police androids inside the dimly lit room when he arrives, both of which are in their charging stations, their LEDs cycling a slow pale blue. He turns up the knob for the lights just enough for him to get by and heads over to the bench top, setting Connor down so he can figure out which cupboard holds the thirium. It takes him four tries before he locates a box of them. He takes one out and leaves it next to the android, the size of the bag hilariously large next to it, before washing his hands of the blue smear. It's got that weird sticky feel that reminds him just a little bit too much of actual blood.

'Right, I'll leave you to it then,' he says as he pulls out a couple of paper towels to dry his hands with.

'Thank you, Lieutenant.'

'Yeah, sure. Try not to get squeezed to within an inch of your life again next time, alright?'

'I'll do my best.'

Hank sighs as he leaves the room and heads back to his desk. They hadn't manage to get all that much from the HK400 other than obvious signs of trauma but he figures once Connor is more or less repaired he can get the rest of what he needs from it.

He's an hour into filling out what he can on his paperwork when he sees movement from the empty chair next to his desk and he sits up a little bit in surprise to see the doll pull itself up onto the furniture, painstakingly slow. He raises his eyebrows when the android climbs onto the armrest and jumps the small distance to get onto his desk. Its clothes are still stained blue at multiple points and it looks rumpled.

'Ugh, geez, I was hoping I wouldn't have to see you for the rest of the day,' he groans. It's almost time to pick up Cole from his after-school activities, just another hour and a bit left to go.

'How will you then finish the rest of your report?' It asks as it limps closer and begins to interface with his computer.

Hank frowns as he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. 'Uh, tomorrow. _Duh_.'

'Yes, but it will be much nicer to close the case today rather than leave it until the morning.'

He waves his hand in a shooing motion, uncaring because it's not as if it'll be the last time he takes work home with him, 'Yeah, yeah. You done, yet?'

'Yes, I've included all my findings from the HK400's memories that I believe to be relevant to the investigation. I've already uploaded all of their memories for CyberLife to analyze and dissect. I will continue to rest now,' it says as it limps across his table and sits down next to his dead pot-plant, leaning its back onto it. He doesn't even remember who gave the plant to him in the first place.

He huffs and gets back to work and finds out a lot more about Carlos Ortiz than he ever wanted to. A part of him is glad the guy's dead; he treated his android like shit and, machine or not, that HK400 didn't deserve to be beaten up like that every damn day of its life. He clicks his tongue in distaste and finishes up the report so he can file it away and never have to think about how scared and angry the android had been before it got shot in the head by Reed. Maybe it was mercy, in the end.

Hank powers down his computer for the day and gets up to leave before he gets saddled with more work. His eyes stray over to the android for a moment and he thinks it really does look like a doll while it's sleeping, except the blue blood on it kind of ruins the illusion of peace.

He shakes the thought away and goes to pick up Cole from his little league practice.

\---

'Lieutenant!' The android shouts as soon as he's spotted in the bullpen the very next morning.

Hank groans and ignores it; he hasn't even gotten a damn cup of coffee yet and he's already being harassed. Predictably, the doll follows after him and there's a tittering of laughter echoing through the room. Even _Jeff_ is laughing at him from behind his coffee as he passes by to go back to his office.

'Good morning, Lieutenant. I just received a report regarding a domestic disturbance involving an android. We should go soon.'

'Hold your horses,' he growls as he pulls out a clean cup from the pantry and fills it to the brim. 'Haven't even had a damn sip and you're already hounding me to jet off to another crime scene. _Fuck_.'

'Apologies, I'll remember to allocate you time for coffee before I hound you in the future.'

'Ugh,' he replies smartly and takes a long sip before finally turning to properly look at the android standing next to the coffee maker after it climbed its way up to the bench. They're back in tip-top condition, no sign of thirium anywhere on its body, although he has no doubts Connor can probably still see them. What a gruesome thought; to be able to see your own blood when nobody else can. 'So, you're all repaired then?'

'Yes, my biocomponents have fully repaired during the night and my thirium levels are at 100%. Thank you for asking.'

He rolls his eyes; he wasn't exactly asking out of politeness. He takes another long sip and leans onto the bench top, crossing one arm over his bicep as he waits for the coffee to kick in full force. 'Okay, give me a rundown of the report.'

The doll stands up straighter, 'An AX400 was reported to have attacked its owner: Todd Williams. He destroyed it in self-defense and is demanding reparations from CyberLife. We have been tasked to go to the scene to gather evidence and evaluate the situation.'

A thoughtful hum escapes him when he hears the name Todd Williams. It takes him a while and two more sips of coffee before it clicks; he'd arrested the guy twice before back when he was still working as part of the red ice task force. From memory, Todd Williams was a real piece of work.

'What's your take on it?'

'My take?' It repeats, its LED momentarily turning yellow at the question before returning to blue.

'Yeah, what do you think of the report?' He asks, definitely stalling for time so he can at least finish one cup of coffee and bring another cup with him.

'While it is unwise to jump to conclusions, it's been noted that Todd Williams has a record for violent misdemeanors and has been arrested several times for drug trafficking. My take would be that the android did something he didn't like and he reacted violently towards it.'

'Sounds like a broken record,' he sighs as he thinks of the HK400. It's probably still down in the evidence locker; who knows when the CyberLife technicians will actually come by to collect it. Maybe they're waiting for an accumulation of androids so they can do a single trip instead of multiple. Lazy bastards.

He guzzles down the rest of his coffee and fills it up again halfway before heading off back towards his car. 'Come on, waiting on you now.'

'Apologies, Lieutenant. I'll endeavor to work in a more timely manner.'

Hank snorts into his coffee cup, listening to the quick footsteps coming up behind him.

\---

The house is a dump and looks like it's just two steps away from looking like the shithole that Carlos Ortiz lived in. The one main difference that stops it from actually being one is the child he's got living under the same roof, poor kid.

He frowns at the child rocking herself on the stairs, holding tightly onto a teddy bear while Chris is talking to her calmly, trying to ease her out of her panic and anxiety. He hopes Chris is going to call child protective services into this case because Todd Williams is doing a piss-poor job of being a father, let alone a decent man.

'Piece of shit came at me,' the man growls as he kicks at the chassis of the android. It's already deactivated and destroyed, one arm almost torn off and a sizeable dent on its shoulder that looked as if blunt force trauma broke its neck. Its eyes are wide open and unseeing and it makes something nasty curl up in his guts. He turns away from it, away from the blue blood spilling out under its body, to stare the man down.

'Start from the top,' he asks even though he'd really rather not listen to this asshole talk about how _he's_ the victim in this scenario when it's obvious this guy is only just coming down from a red ice high and probably destroyed his own android in a hissy fit. He figures he'll let the doll parkour its way around the house again or something to get the evidence they need while he's got this guy on a self-righteous rant.

'When are the CyberLife techs getting here? I've already wasted money repairing it twice. They owe me for this,' Todd spits out as he finally notices the doll next to the destroyed android. 'Hey, get the fuck away from it.'

Connor ignores him, 'Lieutenant, I regret to inform you that I'm unable to gather any data from the AX400. All of the information in its memory banks have been corrupted upon its destruction, most likely due to high levels of stress.'

Hank sighs, disappointed because he'd been hoping for Connor to be able to get any amount of information against Todd Williams. At least enough to help the kid get away from being under his thumb. While she doesn't look like she's being physically abused, he knows mental abuse can be just as bad if not worse. She'd be scarred for life if she stays here. He'd be surprised if she's not already scarred from watching her father beat the crap out of the android.

'I said, get the fuck away from it!' Todd shouts and Hank has to pull the man back by the shoulder before he goes over and stomps on it. From the corner of his vision, he sees Chris stand up and take a step closer, putting himself between the father and the little girl.

'Mr. Williams, Connor is a police assistant and has every right to examine the android to see what made it attack you,' he squeezes down firmly on the man's shoulder in warning when he feels them about to shrug it off. 'I _suggest_ you not get in the way.'

'You might be pleased to know that while the memories of the AX400 is completely irretrievable, it can still be repaired.'

'As if I want that fucking thing near my daughter again,' he scowls and fumes when the doll passes by, giving them a wide berth, wide enough that Todd would have to lunge to land a hit.

This time Hank lets go when the man moves to pull himself away from his grip. 'Why don't you sit down, Mr. Williams. Obviously going through something as disturbing as this must be hard on you,' he says even though he doesn't mean a damn word of it. He just wants the guy to stay out of their way long enough for Connor to do its job.

He turns and watches the doll go up towards the child, climbing its way up the two steps to get near her. He's surprised to see it holding a hand out to the little girl, the skin deactivated to reveal the white plastic of its chassis, and gets the shock of his life when the kid, slowly and tentatively, holds out her hand, too, doing the exact same thing.

'Holy shit,' he swears and just barely has the presence of mind to hold Todd back from rushing at Connor.

'Get away from her!'

He hadn't realized the girl was an android, he wasn't prepared for the sight of Connor interfacing with the girl. All this time he'd thought the kid was in desperate need for child services to come whisk them away to a better and happier home. This changes everything.

Or maybe it changes nothing. He doesn't know what to think.

'The AX400 was destroyed when it tried to protect the child from physical abuse.'

'That thing shouldn't have gotten in the way! Alice is mine to punish when she misbehaves!'

'Fuck,' he hisses when he hears the smallest of whimpers come from the little girl, hiding further into her teddy bear and cowering where she sits, rocking herself in order to self-soothe her anxieties. Todd begins to struggle against him and Hank has to use his weight to subdue them, forcing them to the ground, all too happy to let Chris put the guy in cuffs while he shouts and screams that _he's_ the damn victim.

'Lieutenant, please note that I have also found evidence of red ice on the property. There are traces of it on the coffee table as well as a hidden bag in the laundry room.'

Hank smirks, feeling inordinately pleased by this news as Chris hauls the man up to his feet. 'Guess what, asshole, you're under arrest for possession of red ice. _Again_.'

While Todd sits fuming in the police car, two more vehicles arrive to help take photos and tag evidence. Apparently, Todd has a bigger stash of the stuff upstairs in his bedroom and more hiding in the bathroom. In the cistern, predictably.

He sweeps his eyes across the room and ignores the flash of photography as someone takes photos of the destroyed android, cataloging the violence as part of the so-called red haze that substance abusers go through. He sees Chris kneeling in front of the girl, android, still calmly talking to her as if she's a real kid and not a machine designed to emulate the feelings of an actual child.

Hank turns away; he doesn't know what to think.

'Mr. Williams' wife divorced him some years prior and took their daughter with her, winning custody of the real Alice,' he hears Connor say from next to him and he looks down to see it staring at the kid, 'It is not uncommon for grieving parents to purchase child androids to fill that gap,' it pauses here, its LED turning yellow momentarily before returning to blue, 'It is unusual; in Alice's memories he claims that he loves her yet he physically and mentally abuses her daily.'

'Humans are messed up. Don't get me started,' he growls as he crosses his arms and grits his teeth against the abuse he wants to hurl at Todd. He's thankful the real Alice is somewhere safe from that whack-job, but android or not, he feels sorry for this Alice, too. 'What's gonna happen to her?' He asks as he gestures over to the kid, watching her rubbing gently at the paws of her teddy bear between her fingers. It's hard to believe they make them so real, so life-like. 

'Most likely, the child android will be deactivated, reset and resold.'

 _Fuck, that's messed up_ , he thinks as he looks away from the kid and tries not to feel guilty about her eventual fate. Maybe it's another kind of mercy; to be able to forget having lived in this shithole of a house with an asshole for a father.

He wants this day to be over so he can go pick up his kid from school and spend more time with him. If these cases have showed him anything so far, it's that life is too full of tragedies and these androids are stuck getting the short end of the stick.

\---

It's drizzling when he finds a spot to park his car, waiting for the school bell to ring. He hadn't been able to get Alice out of his head the entire day - CyberLife technicians eventually arrived on scene to deal with the child android and he couldn't help but feel sorrow as they deactivated the kid, her eyes closing in a kind of finality that reminds him too much of death, and watched her human skin disappear to uncover the white plastic beneath the facade.

He saw Chris turn away from the sight and he really couldn't blame him; Chris spent the better part of three hours with the kid, calming them down, trying to get them to smile and feel better. It wasn't as if they didn't know but it was almost as if maybe they'd been denying the truth of it. Hank felt the same way; it was hard to believe it as truth until he saw it happen with his very own eyes. Connor, meanwhile, had been passive the entire time once its job was done.

Hank doesn't know how to feel about Connor. He wonders if it feels something for the androids its seen so far or if its just an unfeeling machine hellbent on finishing the missions it'd been assigned to complete. He doesn't know how it can remain objective when its own kind is being used and abused to within an inch of their lives.

He's probably overthinking it.

The toll of the bell brings him out of his head and he gets out of his car, pulling out an umbrella to take with him. In less than a minute the school yard is full of screaming and laughing kids just dying to get home or hang out with their friends or just do whatever.

Sometimes he worries when Cole doesn't really do all that, preferring to go home to spend time with him and Sumo if he doesn't have any after school activities on. He should be more worried, but he figures he'd better spend this time with him now while he still can before Cole grows up and decides he's got better things to do than to hang out with his old man and his equally old dog.

A few minutes later he catches sight of his kid walking alongside one of his classmates, laughing and joking with each other. It brings a smile to his face and he's so fucking thankful that they're both still around to enjoy this. The accident from 3 years ago still haunts him to this day but he's glad they both survived and he's glad they still have each other. He doesn't want to imagine how his life would've gone if he'd lost Cole, or if Cole lost him.

'Hey, kid,' he says as soon as his son comes within hearing range.

'Hi, dad,' he grins and then turns to wave goodbye to his friend, saying he'll call later to talk about the group project.

'How was your day?' He asks as he grabs his kid by the shoulders and pulls him close for a rough hug.

'Good. Oliver and I got paired off for our science project. We're gonna make a volcano,' he grins as he slaps a hand across Hank's tummy. He lets out a noise like Cole knocked the wind right out of his sails to oblige him. It gets a laugh out of his kid so he takes it with a chuckle, roughing up his hair as they walk back to his car.

'Did you get any cases today?' Cole asks once they've gotten into the car and he's clipped his seat belt on.

'Yeah, but...' he trails off, hand midway to turning the keys over, his mind going back to Alice and the AX400 that got destroyed trying to protect her, like a mother would a child.

He feels a hand hold onto his forearm, the contact bringing him out of his head and he turns to see Cole looking at him with a furrow between his eyebrows. 'It's okay, dad. We don't have to talk about it.'

He huffs and doesn't know how he struck gold with a kid like Cole. He smiles and finally twists the keys in the ignition, feeling the car rumble to life. 'Thanks, kid. What do you feel like having for dinner tonight.'

'Mac and cheese.'

'With broccoli.'

' _Dad_ , you know it's not a threat if I actually like broccoli, right?' He says with an unimpressed whine, wrinkling his nose as he stares at him.

'What kinda kid likes broccoli,' he grumbles as he signals to join the traffic and starts making their way home.

'This kid!' He grins, excited and happy over the smallest things.

He laughs and he reaches over to rough up Cole's hair again. 'Yeah, my kid.'

\---

It's nearly 8pm when he gets a call from a string of numbers he doesn't recognize. He outright ignores it the first and second time but it keeps ringing until even Sumo gets annoyed by it, huffing from his comfortable spot next to Cole on the couch.

'Who are you and what do you want,' he snaps as soon as he picks up.

'Lieutenant? It's me, Connor.'

He groans, 'Do you know what time it is? Don't answer that,' he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. 'Can it wait until morning?'

There's a short pause on the other end before the android speaks again, 'Unfortunately not. I've received a report about a possible shooting involving an android. The neighbor reported they heard a gunshot from the house next door and when they went to look out of their second-floor window, they saw the android standing over a body holding a shotgun.'

'Ah, shit,' he swears under his breath but Cole still manages to hear it.

'Swear jar!'

'Got it!' He yells back and starts making his way into the bedroom to change, making a mental note to himself to drop a dollar note in the swear jar left on top of the fridge later. He can't go out in a ratty t-shirt and sweatpants, no matter how comfortable it is. 'Alright, who else is heading over?'

'Officer Miller and Detective Collins are heading out soon.'

He nods as he balances the phone between his head and shoulder to pick up the pile of clothes he left on the floor, 'Hitch a ride with them. I'll be over once I wrangle up a babysitter for my kid.'

'Got it.'

Hank ends the call and quickly changes back into what he'd worn earlier, making sure to check the safety of his handgun before slipping it back into his holster. He doubts anyone would judge him for re-wearing the same clothes as before and even if they did, he doesn't give a shit what they think.

He's debating whether it's a good idea to call his next door neighbors' kid when she's trying to study for her exams when the doorbell rings. She probably wouldn't want the distraction.

'What now,' he grumbles as he heads to the front and opens the door to find Tess standing on the other side with a bag of her study books dangling off her fingers. He turns to frown at Cole who grins unapologetically at him, waving at Tess from his place on the couch.

'Heard you needed a babysitter.'

He sighs and turns back to her, running a hand through his hair in mild exasperation, 'Yeah, I just got called in for a case. I'm sorry; I know you're supposed to be studying for your exams and everything.'

She looks tired despite the chipper smile on her face, her tanned skin looking a little wan. There are dark circles under her eyes and she looks like she hasn't had a decent sleep in days. Her hair that she normally ties in a tight bun is loose, showing off all the natural curls and making her look as if she just dragged herself out of bed. He really hopes she didn't just drag herself out of bed for this, even if she is getting paid.

'It's okay!' She says brightly as she holds up her bag, 'I can just study here with Cole. Right, kid?'

'Yeah! You can show me all the gross pictures in your books again!'

Hank groans and lowers his voice so it doesn't carry over to where his son is, 'Please, for the love of God, don't show him anything nasty, alright?'

She has the decency to look apologetic about it, at least. Cole had nightmares about exploding eyeballs and necrotic fingers for a week straight, and then said it was disgusting _and_ cool. 'Promise,' she says with a double thumbs up and walks in past Hank, kicking her slippers off and making herself at home.

'Thanks, Tess,' he calls out as he slips his shoes on and checks for his phone, wallet and keys before heading out. 'I'll be back later!'

'Bye, dad!'

'Good luck, Mr. Anderson!'

'Thanks! Feel like I'm gonna need it tonight.'

He hopes it doesn't keep him for more than a couple of hours but knows won't be that lucky as he checks for the address and puts it into the GPS before driving off.

By the time he arrives, both Ben and Chris are already at the scene with Connor practically hidden in the tall grass. They have the large android in cuffs although it doesn't seem to be doing anything else but stare passively at the ground, its LED a bright red. Ben is standing by a dead body with the shotgun on the floor about a foot away from him.

'Alright, what's the sitrep?' He asks as he carefully makes his way through the wrought iron gates towards Chris, doing his level best not to freak out the very large android. He didn't even know CyberLife made them this big.

'The deceased's name is Zlatko Andronikov, age 47, they previously served time for embezzlement and fraud,' Connor recites, obviously having already scanned the body for information, 'The TR400, name registered as Luther, admitted to killing Zlatko with his shotgun earlier this evening.'

'Right,' he says as he turns to the large android, 'Would you be willing to tell us why?'

Its quiet for a long time, LED spinning red circles before it answers in a very quiet voice, 'I didn't want to hurt anybody anymore.'

'Hurt who?' He presses, starting to get another bad feeling creeping up his spine. The dilapidated look of the house does not help the atmosphere.

'The other androids,' it says and tears its eyes away from the ground to look into Hank's, despair written so clearly in the lines of its face and on its body. 'Zlatko likes his experiments,' it murmurs and drops its gaze back to the ground, going passive once more.

Hank frowns and looks down at Connor, 'Can you confirm?'

'I refrained from probing its memory until your arrival. However, it might be worth exploring the vicinity first before resorting to a data transfer, that way we can receive an impartial view for the investigation.'

He looks up at the house and sees that it's a giant 3-storey monstrosity; there's no way they'd finish before midnight if Connor had to parkour its way in and around the house to analyze everything. He sighs and leans down, offering a hand to the doll, 'Come on, we'll probably be more efficient if I just have you scope out the rooms from my shoulder.'

Connor stares at him for a brief moment before looking down at his hand. He's about to snap at it to hurry the fuck up when the doll sits down on his palm and allows itself to be lifted up until it can sit on his shoulder. It feels like it barely weighs more than a pound and he doesn't know how CyberLife managed to fit so much into such a tiny body.

'Right. Chris, you good here?' He asks before he makes his way to the front door.

'Yeah, the other guys will be here soon to cordon off the crime scene. You should go ahead if you wanna have free reign of the house before it gets bombarded. I'd say you've got 15 minutes before it starts getting crowded.'

'Got it. Thanks for the heads up.'

He listens to Chris talk gently with the TR400, quietly leading it to a squad car and sitting it down. It reminds him of how he treated that child android earlier today and he doesn't know how Chris can do it, but Chris is a better man than most.

The door creaks open in a bad way when he pushes at it, the hinges groaning as he walks in. The inside is surprisingly fancy and clean even though it looks horribly rundown from the outside. There are honest-to-God carved pillars as support beams for the main entry and paintings on the walls, bookshelves almost filled to the brim. He wouldn't have had any idea the guy was rich looking at the state of the exterior.

'What else can you tell me about Zlatko?' He asks Connor as he slowly makes his way through to what looks like a living room. It looks pretty snazzy and it confuses him that the exterior wouldn't match the interior, unless it's to hide something.

'He is the descendant of an aristocratic Russian family that fled their home country at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917. By the time he was born, the family fortune was already severely depleted.'

He whistles as he eyes the large fireplace, the embers still glowing. 'Wow, I guess that explains the house.'

'I saw a path leading downstairs in the main entryway; we might find something of note in the basement. I'm also seeing blue blood residues on the surfaces of the furniture.'

'Which ones?' He asks as he looks around at the couches in the living room and the coffee table between them.

'All of them.'

He fights back a shudder and makes his way for the stairs, following it downstairs in a careful manner. He's comforted in knowing that both Ben and Chris are on site but it wouldn't do to become over-confident at this early stage. 

The wood walls cut off and turn into exposed brick and concrete after a few steps, the lights going from a warm yellow to a harsh white as he slowly make his way down. The bad feeling from earlier comes back as he gets to the bottom of the stairs and walks down the dusty corridor until he reaches what looks like horse stables.

'What the fuck,' he trails off as he eyes the half-rusted gates. They look like cages.

'There is...a disturbing amount of thirium on this floor.'

Hank can't see a single drop of it but he knows that shit evaporates and becomes invisible to the human eye in a handful of hours. He also didn't miss the slight hesitation in Connor's voice when it spoke just now either and it's what makes him reach for his gun, clicking off the safety as a precaution.

It's dark inside each cell. He can't see anything but he can definitely hear something clicking in the darkness and he fights off another shudder as he quietly asks Connor, 'What are your scans telling you now?'

'The TR400 was right; Zlatko likes his experiments.'

A broken hand slips through the bars, two fingers missing, blue sparks coming out of it and a static-filled voice crying and reaching out for them, 'P̸l̶e̵a̴s̸e̸...' Its eyes shine through the darkness, red like exposed light filaments, LED flashing yellow, red, yellow.

He unwittingly takes a step back, grip tightening on the handle of his gun. He feels his heart jump at the sight, filled with horror at what he's seeing.

Another body limps up next to the first, its head broken open and its skin ripped in places and charred in others, hands reaching up to grab the bars, one eye watching them while the other socket sits empty.

'Holy shit,' he hisses and can't stop the shiver cascading through his body. He looks away to the other cells when he hears a scrape on the ground and sees an android with its legs torn off and its wires exposed crawling to the iron bars keeping it inside.

'We should keep moving, Lieutenant,' Connor speaks quietly into his ear, reminding him what he was doing here in the first place, 'We should be able to find something else if we follow the corridor.'

'Right, right, _shit_ ,' he shakes his head and forces his feet to keep walking. He hears the androids calling for him, calling for help, begging, crying and it scares him how real they sound, as if they're in agony. They get past all the cells and step into another room filled with equipment he can't quite make heads or tails of, his mind still whirring at the sight of the mutilated androids. 'How many of them were back there?'

Connor is quiet for a moment, as if debating whether or not it should say anything before it calmly answers him, 'There were three androids in the first cell, six in the second and one in the third.'

'Shit,' he has to stop to just breathe for a moment, leaning over a bit with his hands on his hips just to try and regain some sense of balance. His whole world just got flip turned upside down in a matter of seconds. He's suddenly glad that Zlatko is dead. He's only sorry that he died quickly; a mercy he sure as hell doesn't deserve.

He feels a small pressure on his upper back, gently rubbing back and forth and he realizes the doll is trying to comfort him. He wants to laugh except he thinks it might come out broken and all too horrified. He swallows down the bile that's been trying to spill out of him for the last couple of minutes and eventually straightens himself up to take another proper look around the room, except he still can't really figure out what it is he's seeing.  
  
'What the fuck is that?' He asks as he jerks his chin over to the machine on the far end of the room. It's connected to a computer and that's about all he can figure out.

'It's reminiscent of an apparatus one might find in CyberLife that's used to construct or deconstruct androids. They can also be use to test an android's range of abilities as well as their functionality while they are supported by the rig. This one seems to be predominantly used to erase memories of captured androids.'

Hank carefully moves inside the room, keeping a hand on his gun in case he might need it. There are x-rays or scans of some sort on the wall lit up by a back-light. He doesn't know a whole heap about android anatomy but he can tell Zlatko's been messing around with stuff he really shouldn't have.

'Lieutenant, my scans tells me there are biocomponents within those containers there,' it says and he turns to see it point to a couple of boxes piled up on top of each other. 'I believe this is one of the ways Zlatko has been earning his income.'

He pushes the lip off of one using the tip of his gun and sees it's half-full. He wonders if any of these belong to the androids locked up in the cells.

He snaps his mouth shut and swallows the despair that's trying its level best to drag him down a deep, dark hole. 'What's gonna happen to the androids here?'

'Most likely, they will be deactivated and recycled.'

Maybe that's mercy in a way, to help end the misery of having only a half-life.

'What about the TR400?'

'I will ask to copy its memories so I can upload them to CyberLife. It will also most likely be deactivated and analyzed to see how its program allowed it to turn against its owner.'

'Can you blame them for killing that son of a bitch, though?' He asks, suddenly feeling angry. He can hear voices filtering down the stairs and footsteps walking through the house. He walks out of the room to intercept the other guys before they freak out at the disfigured androids locked away in their cells.

There's a long pause and he can't help but feel pity for the crying androids they're passing still calling out for help before Connor speaks flatly, 'It is not my place to allocate blame. My purpose is to assist in all investigations regarding androids. That is my function.'

He wants to call Connor out on it, he can tell its just as disturbed by the events of tonight as he is, but he figures maybe it just needs time to come to terms with everything it saw, time to process the horrors of what its seen. He sure as hell does.

It's now that he realizes that this is all Connor has ever been exposed to in the last two days of working with him, all the darkness and the repulsiveness of humans. It makes him ashamed of how some people can get and sometimes he can't help but be pissed off at the depravity of some of them. He doesn't blame any of the androids for reacting the way they have and it hurts something inside him to see their desperation and their anguish.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs pulls him out of his head and he quickly holsters his gun when he sees Ben followed by Tina. 'Just so you know, there are ten androids in the cells here. Connor, what's your recommendation?'

'Do not let them out of the cells. CyberLife has been informed and a team will arrive shortly to assist in the investigation. They will defer to you before they do anything with the evidence.'

'Alright, thanks,' Ben says as he eyes the doll on his shoulder before looking back at him.

Hank shakes his head and then jerks a thumb over his shoulder, 'There's a room down the corridor you guys might be interested in. I'm going to see what else we can get from the TR400. Is Chris still with it?'

'Yeah. Gotta say, Hank. These last few days have been messed up.'

He snorts, 'You're telling me,' he says tiredly as he makes his way back up the stairs passed some people who are already tagging some evidence and snapping photos of it. He walks out through the door towards the squad car where Chris and the larger android is, sitting passively in the back seat halfway out of the vehicle.

Chris looks up when they approach but the TR400's eyes are staring blankly at the ground. He doesn't get the chance to open up with a question before Connor beats him to the punch.

'Luther, may I request a connection with you to gain access to your memory banks? We can use that to compile what we've found and consolidate the evidence we've gathered thus far.' 

The large android doesn't move, doesn't even blink. Hank exchanges a quick look with Chris and sees them give a helpless shrug before turning back to the TR400 when it finally speaks, 'Am I going to be deactivated?' It asks, its voice oddly flat.

'Most likely.'

He wants to groan in dismay; CyberLife didn't do squat with installing proper social cues in Connor. A softer approach would've been better than the direct one, but then again, maybe androids prefer the lack of waffling about that humans are so fond of doing.

It nods slowly in acceptance, 'I don't want to be here anymore,' it says as it slowly raises its cuffed hands up to Connor, its skin deactivating on one of them to reveal the white plastic of the limb. Connor does the same, its hand ridiculously dwarfed by the sheer size of the TR400's. 

The exchange only takes seconds before they both pull away.

'Thank you for your cooperation,' Connor says softly as it bows its head a little.

A small brittle smile appears on the TR400's face, sorrow and regret evident in the lines on its face. 'You're welcome.'

He thinks the android probably doesn't get thanked a lot. It's probably not received a whole lot of positive interaction of any sort since its activation and that's a sad, depressing thought he doesn't want to have when it's so late into the night.

It takes another hour before he decides he's seen enough to give him a bad night's sleep. There were 14 androids in total that were mangled up by Zlatko's experiments found in the entire house. One was in the bath tub on the second floor and another was an android polar bear locked up in a small cage that wasn't even big enough for it to lie down properly. They were all deactivated by the techs and carted out into CyberLife vans to be transported back. The TR400 was also taken away with them, eyes closed and left in its normal white plastic chassis.

Hank can't help but feel just as sorry for the TR400, too. It might've been safe from Zlatko's sick joyrides but it's obvious it was just as psychologically damaged by him. He hopes it found some semblance of peace before its deactivation.

He sighs, exhausted both physically and mentally. He just wants to go home and fall into bed and sleep for the next 12 hours if he can get away with it. Which he can't because he still needs to wake up at 7am; he's got a kid that needs looking after.

'Alright. I'm going home.'

'Of course, Lieutenant. Drive safely,' it says as it makes to get off Hank's shoulder.

'Hold it,' he starts before the doll jumps off, 'How likely are you to get a report first thing in the morning?'

The android looks away for a brief second and Hank groans, already knowing what it's going to say. Somehow, he feels even more exhausted.

'I actually already have two more reports for us to investigate but they're not time-sensitive so they can wait until morning.'

'Ugh, great,' he's going to end up being buried under a mountain of paperwork before the week is over at this rate. 'Fine, we'll deal with it tomorrow morning after I drop my kid off at school. Might as well get a head start,' he sighs as he starts for his car, pulling out his keys from his pockets.

'Are you suggesting I go with you, Lieutenant?'

'Yeah, got a problem with that?'

'Not at all. It would make for an efficient start to the day.'

'Ugh,' efficiency hasn't been part of his vocab for the last few years, especially with a kid in the equation. He did learn to better sort out his priorities, though, so that's something.

Hank has to put up his music to keep him awake for the drive home. His brain feels like it wants to float away into the clouds and his eyes keep wanting to slip shut and the last thing he needs is to get into another crash. He frowns the entire drive home, digging up the anger and disgust he feels for Zlatko and he tries not to get into a depressive funk thinking about the abused androids begging for salvation.

It's nearly midnight by the time he gets home and most of the lights are off except for the little slivers of it coming through the blinds. He checks to make sure Connor is following him before he quietly closes the front door behind him.

Tess looks dead on her feet as she sits at the kitchen table, two of her books open in front of her. She smiles and waves at him when he comes in. 'Hey, Mr. Anderson, how did it go?'

'Like a train wreck,' he admits as he goes to his cupboards to pull out a glass and opens another one to pour himself some whiskey. He chugs the whole thing in one go and smacks his lips in satisfaction. 'Thanks again for coming by so last minute. I really appreciate it.'

'No worries, glad I could help,' she says as she starts packing up her books. 'Cole went to bed around 9. He said he wanted to wait up for you but I told him you'd probably be a while. He kicked up a small fuss but I could tell he was already tired by that point so it didn't take much to convince him to go to bed.'

He nods as he puts the empty glass into the sink and puts away the whisky. As much as he'd like another one he knows he shouldn't fall back into dangerous habits. 

'I hope you have a good sleep, Mr. Anderson. You look like you need it.'

He snorts and gives her a lazy salute, 'Right back at ya, Miss Roberts.'

She locks the door on her way out and he groans tiredly as he goes down the hallway to Cole's room that used to be a garage. It took the better part of a year to get the permits to allow him to refurbish the room but it's got everything a growing boy needs.

The door is slightly ajar and he pokes his head inside to see his kid sleeping with one arm and one leg sticking out of his blankets, half of it pooling onto the carpet. He chuckles at the sight, feels as if a small weight is lifted off his shoulders as he walks in to sit on his bed. He runs his fingers through Cole's short hair, letting the soothing motion help push back some of the horrors he'd seen earlier in the night. He lets himself sit there for a few more minutes before getting up to get ready for bed himself.

It's only after he's done brushing his teeth that he remembers about Connor and he hurries out of the bathroom with his beard still wet to look for the doll. He finds it standing near Sumo, its hands sunk right into his thick fur and rubbing gently.

He huffs, 'Be careful Sumo doesn't roll over onto you, but I bet you could probably handle it,' he says crosses his arms to stare down at the android and the occasional tail wag coming from the saint bernard.

'You'd be correct.'

'You like dogs?' He asks, feeling a bit curious.

'Sumo is the first dog I've ever met since my activation so I don't have enough information to validate this claim but results are positive so far.'

He snorts and rolls his eyes, 'Alright, I'm going to bed.'

'Goodnight, Lieutenant. Thank you for allowing me to stay here tonight.'

'Sure, no skin off my back,' Hank shrugs as he makes his way into the bedroom. He feels exhaustion hit him like a brick wall as soon as he lies down under the covers, letting his body sink into the mattress. He groans as he shuffles around until he gets into a comfortable spot and closes his eyes and resolutely tries not to think about the broken androids from earlier.

'Dad!'

He wakes with a jolt and hurries out of his bedroom. It's morning and he feels like he barely slept a wink in as he runs into the living room and sees his son kneeling next to Sumo and he feels like heart jump in his chest in fear.

'Dad! You didn't tell me you got an android!'

Relief makes him weak at the knees as he half collapses onto the back of his couch. 'Jesus, kid, don't give me a heart attack first thing in the morning,' he grumbles as he straightens up and goes around to see Cole staring adoringly at the doll with the biggest smile on his face that he's seen all month.

'Is Connor gonna stay here with us from now on?' Cole asks as he swivels around to throw pleading eyes at him. Hank's only immune to it about 70% of the time and thankfully this is one of them.

'Sorry, kid. He's currently on loan to the DPD from CyberLife,' he says as he sits down on the couch, not going into detail about it as he scratches at his beard, feeling some of the adrenaline leave him now that he knows there's no immediate danger or death.

'But he can stay with us when you guys aren't working, right?'

'Uhm,' he falters and shifts his gaze over to where Connor is sitting on Sumo's back to see them shrug at him, a gesture that seems a little too human and a little too odd coming from an android. 'I guess he can? It's not like he takes up that much room.'

'Yes!' Cole shouts excitedly as he turns his attention back to the doll, 'I can be your big brother!'

Hank guffaws; sometimes he misses the simplicity of childhood. 'Don't get too attached to Connor; they're gonna end up going back to CyberLife eventually,' he warns as he gets up from the couch and goes to get himself ready for the day, barely remembering to drop a dollar into the swear jar above the fridge when he gets his wallet into his pocket.

'That's okay, you can still stay for a while, can't you?' He implores to the android. 'Until you go back I can be your big brother! I've always wanted to be a big brother.'

'I never thought I'll have a big brother,' he hears Connor say, probably humoring his kid.

His words send a little pang into his heart; if the childbirth hadn't gone from smooth sailing to a clusterfuck in a matter of minutes, Cole probably would've had a little sibling by now to follow him around like Sumo does.

He shakes off the old heartache and goes to get changed, leaving them in the living room.

It takes longer than usual for Cole to get ready for school and to finish up his breakfast, too excited and distracted by Connor's presence to follow the usual routine. Hank figures he'll let it slide for now but his kid's gonna end up with a soggy bowl of cereal if he keeps talking instead of eating and it takes him a good amount of cajoling to get him to hurry up otherwise they're going to be late.

Connor ends up sitting with Cole on the way to school and he appreciates the android putting up with his kid, answering his rapid-fire questions and being patient with him. But he guesses all androids are built to be patient towards children. He has to step in to stop Cole from manhandling Connor a bit too much; he doubts they have the capacity to feel their pride being hurt or crushed but he's seen enough over the last few days to realize that personalities can develop in any android when given enough stimulation.

'Hey, wait,' he stops Cole just before he gets out of the car to hurry to class, 'I know you're excited but you're not allowed to talk about Connor to _anybody_ , do you get me?'

Predictably, he whines, 'But why?'

'This is important police business, top secret. You have to keep this quiet for me, alright?' He honestly doesn't want to get in trouble with Jeff or with CyberLife if people find out about Connor. That's a migraine he really doesn't want to deal with.

Cole's mood changes suddenly as he leans forward in his seat, his voice dropping down low to copy Hank's. 'Is this because of what happened yesterday?'

He's surprised his kid would bring it up but he's thankful he can run with that reasoning. He supposes it's true either way. 'Yeah, kid. There are things happening that Connor and I are trying to figure out so this needs to stay between just us, alright?'

'Okay,' he says with quick nods. 'You'll be careful, right, dad?'

'Yeah, of course,' he smiles as he reaches over to ruffle his kid's hair, 'Who else is gonna look after Sumo with me?'

'I'll see you after soccer practice, right?' He asks, looking scared and anxious suddenly.

'Yeah, of course,' he repeats, trying to soothe his kid, 'Connor and I will be here to pick you up later. I promise.'

'Okay!' He shouts and immediately dashes out of the car, slamming the door close behind him. He suddenly feels like he just got tricked by his own kid. 

'Damn brat just played me,' he mutters as his eyes follow Cole until he disappears inside the building. He turns to look at Connor and there's a little quirk to their lips like they're holding back a smile, or a laugh, or both. 'Congratulations, you're stuck with Cole.'

'Surprisingly, I don't seem to mind so much.'

'Yeah, yeah,' he sighs as he pulls the car out of park back onto the road, 'Which direction we heading?'

Connor leads the way until they're pulling up next to a convenience store. The neighborhood looks pretty rundown; there are some building across the road that have seen better days and a few more across the way that look like they're one stiff breeze from toppling to the ground. He gets out of the car and helps Connor get onto his shoulder.

'Alright, what're we dealing with?' He asks as he casts his eyes around the area. The laundromat seems to be getting a whole lot of business but the convenience store seems fairly empty.

'An android was spotted coming in and out of that house across the road,' Connor says as they point to the building in question, the one that looks like it would fall apart under some bad weather. 'The model was said to be a WR600; a commercial android designed for maintenance in green spaces and gardening work.'

'Okay, so what? They decided to quit their day job to live a hobo's life? It's not like they were doing anything to hurt anybody.' Hank points out as he starts walking, trying to find a way to get inside. After a couple of loops he concludes the only way in is the gate that's chain-linked and padlocked against outsiders. If he were younger he could probably climb over it without a problem but he's a middle-aged man and he knows his limits. 'You see any other way in?'

'Do you have any bolt cutters?'

'Oh damn, I left it in my other jacket,' he says sarcastically with a click of his tongue and a snap of his fingers. 'I probably have side cutters in the trunk though.'

He goes back to the car and pops the boot, rummaging around his work bag until he finds what he's looking for and makes a mental note to himself to buy something more heavy-duty for next time, if there's even going to be a next time.

It takes him a good few minutes to cut a hole big enough for him to fit through. He's pocketing the cutters and brushing off the rust and dirt from his clothes when he feels a small pressure on his shoulder where Connor is sitting and their voice saying urgently, 'Lieutenant.'

He looks up and sees an android standing three feet away from him, covered up in what looks like a ripped up black rubbish bag and half of their face damaged and exposed, sparking with a blue current every once in a while. In their hand is a rusty knife that he really doesn't want to get acquainted with. Hank backs up, one hand held out and the other hovering near his gun, 'Hey, easy, I'm not here looking for trouble.'

'Ralph doesn't like visitors. They're nasty! They may hurt Ralph,' they say, looking twitchy, their movements a little jerky and their LED bright red.

'Nobody's looking to hurt anybody, alright?' He says as he takes the chance to raise his hands up peaceably. 'We're just following a report, that's all.'

'A report?' They repeat, their LED cycling to yellow and the knife dropping down just a little bit. 'A report. It must be the humans. All humans want to hurt us. Humans want to hurt Ralph! But Ralph won't let them hurt him again. No, he won't let them hurt him again,' they keep saying, their tone growing increasingly panicked, their hand raising the knife again.

'I'm an android, too,' he hears Connor say, raising a hand out to show off the white plastic beneath the deactivated skin. 'You have nothing to be afraid of, Ralph. Lieutenant Anderson is a good man.'

The knife drops back down again, their voice swinging back to something approaching calm as they turn their head slightly to reveal more of their damaged face, the cracks and the dent right by their jaw and says, 'Visitors are dangerous. Look what they did to Ralph.'

'You have nothing to worry about. We're not going to do you any harm; we're just following a report. You have my word,' Connor promises and Hank wonders if CyberLife installed negotiator tactics into the android or if Connor has been taking their cues from him. Probably both.

'You must excuse Ralph,' they say as they completely lower the knife and then turn away, hurriedly going inside as if they're trying to run back into the safety of their broken down home.

Hank lets out a shaky breath and rubs a hand down his face. It's seriously too early in the morning for jump scares. 'Maybe I should call for backup.'

'I think that would be a wise course of action. I will send the request to the station now.'

'Thanks,' he sighs as he carefully walks around the outside of the house trying to get a better feel of the place. Almost all of the windows are boarded up and the wooden porch creaks with every step he takes with some of the floorboards having already completely rotted away. He waits until he sees Robert pull up in a squad car next to the fence and gestures at the small entry he made earlier. 'There's an android in there, a bit skittish. Seems like they went through some hard times so try not to spook them and they won't spook you, alright?'

Robert looks a bit wary but eventually nods, willing to let Hank take the lead.

He goes up to the half-opened door and knocks on the wood, 'Ralph? You mind if we come in?' He takes a step back when he hears footsteps coming closer and he sees the android peering at them from behind the door.

'More visitors?' They ask with a shake in their voice, becoming scared.

'Robert's just gonna stay outside. It's only Connor and I coming in, if you'll let us.'

They shifts their weight from foot to foot before they give a jerky nod and pulls the door open fully, not even waiting for them to come through before disappearing into another room. Hank draws in a fortifying breath and takes a step inside.

'Alright, work your magic,' he says quietly as he starts a slow circle around the room, taking the time to pause every once in a while when he catches something he things might be interesting. There are stairs going up to the next floor but he decides not to bother that for now as he makes a move to follow Ralph into the next room over.

The writings on the wall reminds him very much of that HK400 back at Carlos Ortiz's house. The words RA9 and I'M ALIVE written in the spaces where the graffiti hadn't touched. The sight unsettles him and he hopes they're not going to have another bad encounter with this android although they seem to be too preoccupied with scribbling on the walls to pay them too much attention.

He carefully backs out of the kitchen, keeping an eye on Ralph until he feels safe to walk up the stairs. It creaks under his weight, groaning with every step, and he has to force himself to walk closer to the wall than next to the banister as he makes his way up. Most staircases can carry his weight, but then again, most staircases don't belong to old and abandoned buildings, either.

There are four doors. The first door leads into a rundown bedroom and he doesn't find anything interesting in there. Connor doesn't say a word so he figures the doll doesn't have anything useful to contribute either. The second door leads into an equally rundown bedroom with equally less to find. The third opens up into a bathroom and as soon as he walks in there's a familiar stench of death that he's surprised he didn't smell earlier.

'Ah, fuck,' he mutters as he holds a hand up to his nose and waves his other hand around to dispel some of the smell from his immediate vicinity even though it does very little to actually do so. There's a shower curtain hiding whatever's inside the bathtub and he pulls it open to see a dead body laid out in it, dried blood trailing down the man's mouth and nose and from what looks like a three inch laceration on his neck. 'Ah, hell...'

'Victim's name is Jason Carter, age 49, unemployed. I see faint traces of red ice on the victim's beard. Cause of death was injury to the spinal cord. Based on the severe angle, it seems the victim fell and unfortunately broke his neck. His death would've been swift.'

He swears under his breath as he pinches the bridge of his nose, suddenly understanding where Ralph is coming from, what they were saying earlier. It makes a sad sort of sense.

'It was an accident,' he hears behind him and he turns to see the android standing at the stair landing. 'Ralph was just trying to work but the human attacked him. Humans hurt Ralph. Ralph didn't mean to kill the human,' they're fiddling with their fingers nervously, eyes downcast and head jerking oddly.

Their injuries and scars remind Hank a little too much of the androids he saw locked away in Zlatko's house of horrors and he can't help but feel sorry for them. Can't help but feel sorry for all of them.

'Humans hurt Ralph, and Ralph was too scared to go back to work, so Ralph ran away.'

'I'm sorry they hurt you, Ralph, but I can help you forget,' he hears Connor say and he can't help but turn his head slightly to the android on his shoulder wondering to himself since when did Connor have the ability to make androids forget. Has he always been able to erase memories like that contraption that was hidden away in the basement of Zlatko's house or is it just a play?

'Forget?' They ask, looking up to meet their eyes, something like fear and hope appearing on their face, 'Yes. Ralph wants to forget. Ralph wants to forget about all the bad humans that hurt Ralph,' they say as they hurries up the stairs towards them, holding out an exposed hand to Connor and allows the interface to happen.

Hank sees their eyes falling shut, a small relieved smile on their lips before their knees buckle beneath them. He swears as he reaches out to grab them and ease them to the ground. They're not moving and their LED is blank.

'The fuck did you do?'

'They allowed me to override their systems; I was able to use their deactivation code to shut them down.'

'Fuck,' he swears as he leaves the android on the bathroom floor. He hates that it happened but the WR600 actually looks peaceful, as if they're just taking a nice nap.

'Ralph's memories have been uploaded to CyberLife and a team of technicians will arrive to take the WR600 away soon.'

He snaps, 'Can you just fucking--why are you so--you just--' he's aware he's not making any sense. He can barely string together a coherent thought in his head. He doesn't know how Connor can do this to their own kind. He doesn't understand how they can remain so apathetic and so heartless and Hank's realizing now he's having a moral crisis over _androids_ of all things. It's not that he likes them, or even hates them but he doesn't think they deserve any of the shit they've been put through.

Everybody keeps saying that androids don't feel pain or fear or sadness or despair, but Hank knows otherwise. He's seen them angry, scared, depressed. He's seen them panic, get nervous, look relieved. They're so painfully human and the thought makes Hank want to throw up his breakfast.

'Lieutenant, perhaps we should go outside.'

'Fuck you, Connor,' he says weakly although he goes ahead and starts walking down the stairs, uncaring for the croak of the floorboards as he makes his way through the front doors. 'Robert, can you call in the forensics team? We found a dead body upstairs. Don't touch the android, by the way; just leave them alone.'

'Alright. You okay? You look--'

'Peachy. Just...' he frowns and just waves his hand around his hand in a motion he hopes Robert will understand to just drop it and get to work.

Thankfully, they do, immediately bringing up their radio to make the call to the station.

He's incredibly tired and incredibly angry, caught in this horrible limbo of conflicting emotions.

It takes an hour to wrap up the scene and Connor doesn't say a word to him the entire time, probably reading his foul mood. Hank spends the whole time stewing away with his thoughts, going through the investigations of the last few days and turning things over in his mind. His head's a mess and it feels like everything is overflowing out of him. In the end, he feels sorry for Connor, too; they're just doing what they're programmed to do. Still, it doesn't stop him from being disappointed and giving the doll the cold shoulder, metaphorically speaking.

The ride back to the station is filled with his loud music and he doesn't bother helping the android out when he arrives and starts making his way in. He doesn't hear their running footsteps behind him but knows they'll eventually catch up when they want to.

He sits down at his desk and wants to bury his head in his arms. It's barely mid-morning and he already feels like he's running on empty. He sighs and decides to get himself a cup of coffee to get him started; he's got a lot of reports to write and a lot of paperwork to fill in. He's aware that there's another case he's supposed to go to but he also remembers Connor saying it's not time-sensitive so he's going to push it for as long as he can.

He works through lunch, only pausing long enough to go to a convenience store down the road to buy a prepackaged sandwich before diving back into his reports. He has to stop every once in a while and force himself to stay objective, to not let his anger cloud his judgement as he writes about Zlatko's murder. There's no justice in the end, not for the 14 abused androids and the TR400 that kept trying and trying and trying until it finally snapped.

The TR400 was programmed to obey Zlatko, is the gist of what he got from Connor's notes on the investigation. He looks over at the desk next to him where the doll is interfacing with the computer, standing with their hand splayed across the terminal, adding in notes from the memories they received from the androids. He frowns as he looks away.

In a way, Connor is the same as the TR400; they're programmed to obey CyberLife and he hopes he'll never see the day where Connor breaks away from what CyberLife deems acceptable. He hopes he'll never see the day where they have to be deactivated to find the faults in their biocomponents just because they're thinking outside the box.

At the same time he knows he won't be able to walk away if Connor disobeys what he's programmed to do. He knows he wouldn't be able to not help.

He stays in the office until it's time to go pick up Cole from soccer practice. He goes to dump his coffee cups in the dishwasher before going back to his desk to stare down at Connor.

'You coming or what?'

Connor turns to look at him, eyes a little wide in surprise as he pulls his hand away from the terminal. 'I was under the assumption that you wouldn't want me to join you after what occurred this morning.'

'I promised my kid we'll pick him up together so that's what we're doing.'

He turns away, a small frown on his face as he says, 'Promises are broken all the time; it's impossible to keep every single one of them, no matter how well-meant they are.'

'I never make promises I can't keep, especially when it comes to Cole. Now hurry up, his soccer practice finishes in half an hour, and if we're lucky we can catch the tail end of it and cheer him on,' he grumbles as he starts heading for his car. He starts off casual, keeping his ears out for the telltale sounds of the android following him. It takes him five steps before he starts hearing Connor run after him.

'Hey, you heading out?' Chris catches him just as he's leaving the building.

'Yeah, gonna go and watch the end of Cole's soccer practice.'

'Nice. Hey, say hi to him for me, huh?'

'Sure thing. See you tomorrow, Chris. You take care,' he waves as he pulls out his keys from his pockets.

'You, too, Hank. See you tomorrow as well, Connor.'

'Yes,' he starts, sounding surprised at being greeted instead of being simply ignored or laughed at, 'Stay safe, Officer Miller.'

Chris clicks his tongue in farewell and disappears inside the building.

His music is still blasting out of the stereo when he starts the engine and he turns the knob down until it's muted; Cole's too young to be listening to this kind of music anyway. He pulls out of the parking compound and starts driving towards the school. Traffic is just starting to pick up now but he knows all the back roads to avoid most of the jam.

They're about halfway there when he catches movement in the corner of his eye and braces himself for a conversation he's not sure he wants to have just yet.

'I'm sorry if my behavior earlier was unacceptable. I knew you wouldn't be happy with my actions but I had to choose the course that CyberLife would require of me.'

He sighs, figuring as much, 'You were just doing what you're told to do.'

'Yes. I'm still learning how to work with you, with humans in general. I hope that I will be able to find a balance between maintaining a good relationship with you as well as with CyberLife.'

He glares at the road and hates himself a little bit for becoming soft on him. 'You just do you, Connor. Doesn't matter if I get angry; you got your own mission, so who am I to get pissy about it?'

Connor goes quiet and Hank turns to look at him, sees him staring down at his hands, the human synthetic skin pulled back to reveal the white plastic. He frowns a little at this but quickly turns his eyes back to the road, wondering what's going through that head of his.

'I would prefer if you were not angry with me. It's bad for your blood pressure. You also failed to eat a proper meal for lunch but I thought to err on the side of caution and say nothing of it.'

He snorts as he finally pulls up next to the open school field where the games are already finishing up, some of the kids already walking away with their parents, chatting about their day excitedly. 'Well, let's hope the next reports we get don't have us butting heads.'

'If we were to butt heads, I believe I would require many hours of self-repair to undo the damage.'

'Hah!' He laughs as he finally catches sight of Cole trying to bounce a soccer ball on his head and failing kind of miserably. 'Cole!' He shouts out after he's rolled down the window and waves to get his attention.

Cole whips his head and spots him, immediately waving back before dashing off to pick up his school bag. His kid barely says goodbye to his friends before he gunning across the field to reach them.

'Hi Connor!' He shouts as soon as he spots the android.

'Hello Cole, did you have a good game?' Connor asks as he stands up, moving aside for Cole to take the seat.

'Yeah! It was great!'

'What am I? Chopped liver?' Hank grumbles half-heartedly and waits for Cole to buckle up before he pulls back out onto the road to get them back home.

'Hi, dad,' he says with an obvious lack of enthusiasm and it makes Hank want to stop the car so he can give his son a noogie for it.

'You know what? Just for that, we're not making pizza tonight.'

'Dad, no!'

'We're gonna finish off our leftovers instead.'

'Dad, please!'

He cackles maniacally and gets progressively more dramatic as they make their way home. When he looks over at his kid he doesn't miss the small smile on Connor's face as he watches the two of them interact with one another.

It looks almost wistful, and Hank hopes Connor can stick around long enough to build up a personality of his own, outside of what CyberLife dictates as acceptable.

\---

Cole's in bed and he's packing away their pizza leftovers when he sees Connor come into the kitchen with a look on his face that makes Hank groan in dismay. It's nearly 10pm and he's tired and he wishes the city of Detroit would just give him a break.

'Please, for the love of God.'

'I'm sorry, Hank. I just received a report about a break-in.'

'An android broke into somebody's place?' He asks as he shoves the pizza into the fridge. The only reason he can think of why they'd even call him in for something as small as a break-in would be if an android was somehow involved.

'No, the android reported the break-in for the homeowner but when two officers arrived on scene they found the homeowner's son unconscious on the ground and the android standing over them.'

'What? Are you trying to say the android tried to protect the homeowners from the people who broke into the house or that the android attacked the son?'

'It's unclear, but one of the officers shot the android.'

'Ah, fucking hell. _Why_?!' He wants to shout but knows Cole is asleep just down the hall.

'From their report, they thought the android killed the son and might hurt the father.'

' _Shit_ ,' he swears fervently and makes a grab for his phone to call Tess, knowing he's being a major pain in the ass but not knowing who else he he can ask to come over immediately. 'Tess?' He says as soon as the call is picked up, 'I'm really sorry, something just came up and I need to head over there ASAP.'

'Okay, I'll be there in 2 minutes.'

He gets changed in record time and has only just pulled on his holster when he hears knocking on the door. He hurries over and lets her in, seeing Connor slip out right behind Tess' feet. He grabs his wallet, keys and phone, then quickly pats himself down to make sure he's got everything on him before he hurries out.

'I'm really sorry, Tess, I didn't know who else I could call so last minute.'

'It's okay. It's not like you do this all the time.'

He winces and finally notices that she's already in her pajamas, either getting ready for bed or was already in bed when he called her, 'I just got shifted over to a new division, kind of. It's a work in progress. A _lot_ of work in progress. Forewarning, I might actually end up calling you again in the future if this keeps up.'

'At this rate, maybe I should just start sleeping here,' she grins and shoos him out the door and into the light drizzle.

He laughs, glad Tess is being so understanding. 'I'm hoping it doesn't take more than a couple of hours but Cole's already in bed so you don't have to worry too much about that,' he tells her as he unlocks the car door and gets in after Connor.

They end up in one of the fancier neighborhoods, the kind of place he definitely doesn't get called to come over all that often. Or ever, now that he thinks about it. He pulls up at the address outside a house that reminds him of Zlatko's except it's extremely well cared for. There's an ambulance out front with two paramedics pushing in a stretcher with an unconscious man laid out on it. Before he's even got a foot out the door with Connor on his shoulder, they're already speeding away, lights flaring and sirens blaring.

'Don't suppose you saw who that was?' Hank asks as he jogs through the rain and up the ramp towards the open front door.

'Leo Manfred, age 28, unemployed. Has a record for minor misdemeanors and violent public outbursts.'

'Manfred,' he repeats, mulling the name over as he walks in and spots one of the police officers standing in what looks like a very fancy study. 'Sounds familiar. Hit me up with a refresher,' he says as he nods to Valerie and follows the direction she points out to him.

'Carl Manfred is a very prolific painter and philanthropist, many of his pieces go for millions of dollars. He has also contributed to charity galas before to help raise money for non-profit organizations of his choosing via the auctioning of his art pieces. He's very well know for being quite an...eccentric character.'

He snaps his finger at the recollection, 'Right, got it. Thanks.'

'You're welcome, Lieutenant,' he says and falls silent as Hank steps into the room and immediately spots the android on the floor with his eyes staring unseeingly up at the ceiling with a bullet hole right in his chest and another in his abdomen. 

He walks up to the other officer standing a foot away from an old man sitting in a wheelchair with an oxygen mask strapped to his face. Hank looks at him worriedly, 'You sure we shouldn't call you an ambulance, too, Mr. Manfred?'

'I'm fine,' he bites out as he pulls off his oxygen mask to start pointing fingers, 'You look like someone with authority; tell this young man he shouldn't have been so trigger-happy.'

'Sir, the situation looked dire and I reacted as best as I could under the circumstance,' Dean says, hands on his hips and looking pissed off.

'You killed my son!'

'Woah, woah!' He steps in with his hands out and stares at the other police officer, 'You shot Leo Manfred?!' He tries to think back when he arrived, the blanket covering Leo hadn't been stained with blood and there's a distinct lack of it on the floor as well, discounting the blue blood seeping out of the android.

'No! He's talking about the android!' He shouts, pointing at the body lying in a small pool of thirium just a few feet away.

'Lieutenant, if I may?' Connor interrupts and gestures to go over to where the android is lying.

'Yeah, sure,' he says as he helps Connor off and lets him make his own start to the investigation. He turns back to the officer and asks him sternly, 'Did the android have a weapon on him? Did they look unstable? Angry? Desperate?'

'No,' he frowns and curls his lip up in distaste as he crosses his arms in front of him defensively, 'It just stood there.'

'Then why the fuck did you shoot them? Didn't the academy teach you anything about negotiating with perps?' He growls out and wishes he had more energy to deal with stupidity like this. 'Get out. I'll clean up your mess.'

Dean's nostrils flare in anger and looks about ready to protest but decides to bite his tongue and leave instead. Hank shakes his head as he watches them go, dismayed by the turn of events.

'I apologize for my colleague's behavior; he's still young.'

Carl huffs, fogging up the oxygen mask momentarily, 'He'd do well to curb his violent urges,' he says as he turns around and tries to wheel himself closer to where the androids are. Hank steps in and helps him over. 

'Can you tell me what happened, Mr. Manfred?'

'Markus and I just came back home from a party. I noticed the lights in the studio was on and asked if Markus forgot to switch them off,' he pauses as they get nearer and Hank goes around him to kneel down, groaning at the click in his knee joints. 'Maybe you need a wheelchair of your own.'

'Ugh, pass. Maybe in another 10 or so years,' he says as he eyes the bullet wounds. 'What happened after?' He wonders if he should close his eyes but isn't sure if it matters for androids the same way it would for humans.

'We found Leo in the studio. He was trying to steal some of my paintings to feed his bad habits. He got angry, started pushing at Markus. I told...I told Markus not to defend himself because I knew--I knew Leo would do anything, would find any excuse to have Markus taken away from me.'

There's a wetness to the android's face that seems unusual to him, almost looked as if he had been crying. He guesses maybe he did, maybe he felt fear for Carl, or fear of Leo.

'He pushed back, and Leo tripped over his own feet and got himself knocked out. I told Markus to run, to get away but he looked so scared,' he finishes with a small sob, lifting a hand up to cover his eyes. 'I never wanted this to happen.'

'Markus can be repaired,' Connor says from where he's kneeling next to the android's head, pulling his hand away from Markus' temple, 'He can be repaired and reactivated with minimal memory loss.'

'Thank God!' Carl cries as he pulls the mask off and buries his face into his hands. 'Thank God I didn't lose both sons in one night.'

Hank catches the slight flicker of a yellow LED on Connor's head for the briefest of times before it cycles back to blue. He feels uncomfortable suddenly, being present during Carl's most vulnerable time, as if he's intruding on a private moment of despair and relief. It reminds him of the time when he almost lost Cole to a bad road accident, the fears crippling his heart and the pain he felt in his soul at the possibility he might lose his son because of the mistakes of stupid people.

'CyberLife has been informed and they will be by soon to bring Markus to a repair facility for you. It shouldn't take more than a few hours for him to be repaired but at this time of night there wouldn't be any technicians available to complete the procedure. You won't be able to see him until the morning.'

'Thank you, anyway,' Carl says in relief as he shakily puts the oxygen mask back onto his face, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. 'I'm glad; Markus and I have a lot to talk about when he comes back. And Leo, too.'

'Should we move him?' Hank finally thinks to ask as he looks down at Markus. 'Or close his eyes, maybe?'

'As insensitive as it sounds, it would be best to leave him as is,' Connor says as he straightens out his clothes and turns away from the android to look at the both of them, 'CyberLife will have the proper experience and equipment to help Markus. May I suggest we leave the room instead? If seeing him like this makes you feel uncomfortable.'

Hank turns his attention over at Carl and sees him shaking his head. 'I wanna stay by him, make sure they treat him with respect. Most people don't.'

He wholeheartedly agrees with that statement. 'Alright, lemme grab a chair and we'll keep Markus company together.'

Carl smiles, 'Thank you for humoring me.'

'I'm not humoring you. It's just the right thing to do,' he says as he grabs a paint-splattered chair and drags it over to sit next to the old man. He sees Connor start to walk around the studio, pausing every once in a while in front of a canvas to stare at it. When he turns to look over at Carl, he sees him doing the same thing.

'Cute kid, by the way,' Carl says as he points to Connor.

'He's...definitely not a kid. He's a pain in my ass. Sometimes,' he admits and looks for the android again, sees him standing in front of a painting half hidden away at the far side of the room. He's tiny in comparison.

'Like all children are,' he chuckles and Hank guesses he's right, to an extent.

He reminds himself not to get attached; this is only temporary after all. Sooner or later, Connor will be going back to CyberLife. He wonders if the full-sized model will have all of his memories, or if CyberLife will only be bringing over the improved functions from the prototype over to the next generation, dismissing all of his learned mannerism and little quirks of personality. He frowns and tells himself to stop thinking about it.

It takes the CyberLife personnel another 10 minutes to arrive and another 10 more to transfer Markus up onto a plastic table with wheels and load him up into the van. 

'We'll call you when it's ready to be picked up.'

'Call this number,' Hank says as he takes out his wallet, careful not to accidentally dislodge Connor from his shoulder as he pulls it out of his pocket and hands over his card, 'I'll bring him back home for you, if you don't mind?' He asks as he turns to look over at the old man, hoping he's not overstepping.

Carl smiles again, 'No, not at all. I appreciate it, Lieutenant.'

They watch the CyberLife van pull away from the house and keep watching it until the brake lights fade from view. 'You can call me Hank.'

'In that case, call me Carl. Mr. Manfred always makes me feel old.'

Hank guffaws and stays to keep Carl company until his condition gets to a stage where he feels comfortable leaving him for the night. It's nearly midnight by the time he leaves the house but not before he gets a promise from the old man that he's not gonna keel over in his sleep.

'I have a feeling Markus won't be happy with me for that.'

'Markus is many things. Forgiving is one of them,' he says as he finally waves them off and shoos them out of his bedroom.

Hank tries to figure out how to lock up the door behind him before he leaves, unable to see anything that looks like it would just latch up shut until Connor helpfully mentions that it's automatic. He groans when he finally slips back into his car, feeling his whole body start to relax into the seat cushions as he starts making his way back home.

'Fuck, at least this report won't take too long to fill out. Dean'll be lucky if he only gets a slap on the wrist for that shit he pulled. What kind of idiot shoots without provocation?' He frowns and turns his music up just a little bit, enough to keep his attention on the road and not at the thought of a nice bed waiting at home for him.

'Lieutenant?'

'Yeah.'

'He called Markus his son.'

Hank looks over to the android and sees him frowning, looking confused or maybe unsettled. He turns back to the road to wait out whatever Connor wants to say.

'They're not related. It's impossible; one is human and the other is an android.'

He shrugs, 'Sometimes family isn't about blood relations. Sometimes it's just who you choose to call family. Just like Sumo's part of my family even though he's a dog.'

Connor doesn't say anything for a long time. Hank decides to leave him to his thoughts as he gets them closer back home. They're just turning into the street when the android starts talking again.

'Like how Cole says he's my big brother?'

He chuckles and can't help the smile growing on his lips, 'Yeah, just like that.'

'I see. Thank you for clarifying, Lieutenant.'

He parks the car in the driveway, turning the music back down before turning off the engine. He sees Tess sticking her head out of the door and offer him a thumbs up. Hank gives her the OK signal and watches her slip her shoes back on to go back home next door. He sits in the car for a while before he turns to Connor.

'Call me Hank.'

His LED switches over to yellow for a little bit before going back to blue, a small smile forming at the corners of his lips as he says, 'Hank.'

\---

He gets a call just as he's wrapping up the report from last night's investigation he really shouldn't have started filling out. Not when he's not even done with Zlatko's and hasn't even started on the case about the WR600 yet. He wanted something simple and easy to start his morning off with, knowing he'll get distracted at one point to help Carl out later in the day.

They tell him the RK200 is ready for pick-up and it takes him a while to realize they're talking about Markus. He lets them know he'll get there in about 15 minutes and when he rolls up to the CyberLife tower he sees Markus already standing in front of the building. He has no clue if he's been standing outside the entire time or if he only just came out to wait for him when it was nearing the 15-minute mark.

They didn't even have the decency to give Markus a new shirt. The thirium is gone from Hank's vision but the bullet holes are still very obviously there. 

'Ah, hell. For a multi-million dollar company, they sure are cheap about giving you a clean shirt to wear,' he grumbles as he gets out of the car to meet him.

Markus shrugs, looking sheepish, but smiles as he offers him a hand, 'I appreciate you coming out to pick me up.'

'No problem,' he says as he jerks his head towards his car. 'Unfortunately, I do have ulterior motives for coming by.'

'Yes, I thought you might,' he nods as he opens the passenger door and gets one foot in, pausing when he notices Connor sitting on the center console.

'Don't mind him, he's part of the human-android partnership we got on a trial basis at work.'

'I see,' he says slowly as he finally gets the rest of the way in and closes the door, pulling on his seat belt, eyes focused on the android the entire time.

'So,' Hank starts, hoping to get Markus' rapt attention away from Connor, 'What can you tell me about Leo Manfred.'

From the reflection on the window he can see Markus' LED turn yellow in thought. Hank has to force himself to look away, opting to start the car and make the drive back to Carl's place.

'Leo was raised by his mother. They didn't meet each other properly until he was 16 years old.'

'Divorced?' Hank asks as he flicks his eyes over to the android for a moment before looking back to the road.

'No, actually. They never married. It was a...fling.'

'Ah.'

'I think Leo craves attention from Carl, that's why he gets angry whenever he sees me spending more time with his dad than he does, never mind the fact that I'm--' He stops here, shakes his head minutely before changing the subject. 'Carl loves him, too, but Leo gets too jealous of me to see it, and he doesn't see how much it breaks our dad's heart when he blames Carl for the way he turned out.'

Hank reaches over and pats his shoulder firmly twice before putting his hand back on the wheel. 'Sibling rivalry can get pretty messy.'

'Yeah...'

They arrive at Carl's place and Hank hasn't even got the handbrake pulled when Markus immediately gets out and starts for the front door. Hank follows behind with Connor on his shoulder as he hears Markus call out, 'Dad? I'm home!'

'Markus? Thank God; I'm starving,' he hears Carl's muffled shout from upstairs as soon as he walks in through the door and watches the android bolt up the steps two at a time.

Hank feels pleased this investigation led to a happy reunion. He's become so tired of the misery he's seen over this past week that he was starting to feel more than a little hopeless and more than a little emotionally rundown. He watches as Carl is escorted down the stair-lift still wearing his pajamas. 

'Hank, thanks for bringing my boy back home for me,' he says as he extends out a hand to him.

He accepts it with a firm shake, 'No problem. You got yourself a good kid.'

'I'd say I got lucky,' he smiles as he turns to look at up Markus who's mirroring the same helpless smile on his lips. 'That's one down, one more to go.'

The smile slips off, '...I don't think Leo would like it if he saw me come in with you,' Markus says, looking uncomfortable and self-conscious.

Carl shrugs, 'Tough luck.'

'I'll leave you guys to your reunion. Stay out of trouble!' He waves as he starts heading for the car.

'You don't want to stay for brunch?' Markus asks before they get too far. 

'Nah, can't. Got another report we should be checking out. Left it alone for too long already,' Hank admits as he rubs a hand along his neck. 'You take care of him, you hear?'

'Of course,' he smiles and immediately helps Carl into the other room, disappearing from sight.

The front door closes automatically behind him and he lets out a pleased sigh as he gets back in the car. 'Right, where to?' He asks as he turns the engine over and feels it rumble to life beneath him, letting Connor lead him to the next place of interest. It takes them 20 minutes to get there and they end up parking next to an apartment block that has seen better days. It looks like it could even be slated for demolition soon.

He whistles as he gets out of the car with Connor right back on his shoulder, 'Damn, this place looks almost as bad as Ortiz's place.'

'The report I received said that a neighbor possibly saw an android come into this building. Nobody's supposed to be living here.'

'Is that it? We're here because someone couldn't keep their noses out of another person's business?' He scoffs as he looks at the elevator and promptly changes his mind, opting for the stairs instead. He doesn't fancy getting stuck in there for who knows how long, or potentially falling to his death.

'The report is lacking quite a bit of information. It was only sent to me due to the possibility that an android might somehow be involved, otherwise it would've been given to somebody else to take care of.'

'Ugh,' he groans as he opens the door to the stairwell and starts climbing, 'if another report like this comes in, ignore it. We haven't got the time to run around like headless chickens.'

Connor hums thoughtfully, 'I can't say that I'll ignore it, but I'll let you know in future so you can decide whether or not it's worth the effort of investigating next time.'

'Thanks,' he sighs as he keeps climbing up, not wanting to touch the handrails or the walls. Everything in this building has grossed him out so far. It's not that he's a germaphobe but he's not interested in getting tetanus, either. 'What else can you tell me?'

'Not much,' he admits, 'Just that a neighbor said he heard some strange noises coming from the top floor.'

'Seriously? Connor, _please_ , literally anybody else in the DPD could've handled this,' he huffs as he reaches the third floor and forces himself to keep going.

'On the bright side, you're getting a good cardio workout. I'll monitor your beats per minute to make sure it doesn't reach a critical point.'

'Gee, thanks,' he grumbles as he keeps climbing, still not wanting to use the handrails to help pull him along. 

By the time he reaches the top floor he feels seriously out of breath. It's not that he's out of shape, but he's definitely not _in_ shape either. He thinks maybe he should start taking Sumo out on more walks; they could both use it.

He waits until he's more or less breathing normally before he goes towards the door Connor points out to him and knocks on the wood. It sounds a bit hollow and rotted.

There's no answer so he bangs his fist on the door a bit harder as he calls out, 'Hey, anybody home? Just got some questions to ask ya!'

He strains his ears to try and pick up any noise from the inside and he hears it, the sound of something falling over and feet scrambling away.

'Brace yourself,' he tells Connor as he reaches for his gun, clicks the safety off and backs up from the door.

'Got it.'

Hank throws out a kick near where the locking mechanism is, knocking it open and right off the hinges. He clears the first door on the right, ignores the weird markings on the walls and starts for the next door on the left. There's nobody in either rooms so he readies himself for what might be behind door number three.

No matter what he'd thought, what he'd imagined, he hadn't expect pigeons to come flying out at him. He yells and startles backwards a little bit but forces himself to push forward past all the rats with wings. He takes back his earlier assessment; this place is just as bad as Carlos Ortiz's house in both looks _and_ smells.

'Holy shit, this place stinks,' he hisses as he waves a hand in front of his face even though he knows it won't do anything to dispel the stench. He makes himself do another loop of the apartment in case he missed seeing the guy but it's too late; they're already gone. 'Fuck, must've just missed him.'

He can't say he's disappointed though. It's not like the guy did anything wrong in the first place, other than squatting in a condemned apartment building. There's no dead body stabbed 28 times, no broken or mutilated androids anywhere and no corpses hiding behind a shower curtain.

'Looks like we came here for nothing,' he says as he clicks the safety back on and shoves his gun back into his holster. The pigeons are flying all around him, stirring up dust and feathers and he feels his throat itching uncomfortably. He hurries over to a window and pulls it open to get some fresh air in. 'I guess it's plausible an android might've been living here; no human can survive this shit.'

'There's no power or water running through this entire building either. Food and hygiene is not a concern for them.'

'Right,' he says as he starts making a slow circuit through the rooms to give Connor time to scan everything. He doubts he'd even need to spend more than a half hour to fill in this report.

He walks right up to a bookcase and picks up the driver's license just sitting on one of the shelves. It's got a photo of a normal looking guy on it, doesn't really stand out all that much.

'The ID was forged.'

'Really?' He whistles, 'Wow, almost fooled me.'

'Keyword being almost.'

Hank snorts as he throws the ID back onto the shelf to look around some more. He notes the clothing with the initials R.T on it but dismisses it entirely as he moves on into the bathroom and immediately makes a face at all the RA9s staring back at him that he doesn't know how he'd missed the first time he poked his head through in his initial search.

'Okay, I don't know why but seeing all the RA9 stuff scribbled on the walls creeps me out. This is the third place we've hit that's got this.'

'I'm...not sure what to make of it either,' Connor says as he looks around the room. 'I don't know what it is about RA9 that they're so obsessed about.'

He hums uncomfortably as he looks into the sink and sees hints of blue blood in it. The fact that he could even see it in the first place means it's still fresh. He notices the LED near the edge, too, and guesses they must've taken it out to blend in as a human more easily.

'They were just here,' he hears Connor say and turns to see him pointing at a stool kicked into the corner. 'I believe the android had been writing on the wall when he heard us knocking, surprising him into falling over.'

Hank nods at the insight, figuring it sounds about right and just about matches up with the sound he'd heard earlier. He heads out the bathroom and sees Connor pointing at the birdcage knocked over on its side.

'The android collided with the birdcage, making it fall off and--'

'Hold it,' he interrupts before Connor can get too far ahead. 'I reckon we should just leave it.'

Connor turns to look at him in surprise, mouth falling open for a couple of ticks before he blinks and says, 'What?'

'They haven't done anything to hurt anybody.'

'You don't know that.'

He sighs, 'Look, it's obvious they just wanna stay here and live with the pigeons,' even though he hates them with a passion and thinks they're awfully gross. 'Anybody who cares about animals aren't bad people, alright?'

'But--'

'I don't care. Not everybody is as lucky to have a Carl in their lives. As long as they're not hurting anybody, I don't bother 'em,' he says the last part loudly, hoping it's clear enough to get across to the android. He eyes the large hole in the ceiling and moves to leave.

'Hank.'

'What.'

'I...' He pauses a bit, a frown growing on his face, 'You know I would have to report this to CyberLife.'

He sighs, 'Like I said, Connor; you do you. CyberLife is your boss, not me.'

He can't help the disappointment building up inside of him that Connor isn't able to let this go without having it mentioned to CyberLife. He doubts he'll get in trouble with CyberLife but he wonders if they'll change their minds about pairing Connor with him and put him to work with another person instead. The thought of Connor being forced to work with Reed makes him fume because he knows the guy would just about take every opportunity to step on Connor and then claim it was an accident.

'Look, it's just one report, alright?' He cajoles as he makes his way out the apartment and back down the stairwell, hoping that Connor hasn't already sent it off to CyberLife.

'Do you make a habit of not filling in reports, Hank?'

'No, I always do my paperwork, even if I'm a bit slow at times. This is just me making a judgement call about Rupert Travis, alright? If you need to place blame then put it on me,' he says as he breezes his way back down.

'That won't be necessary,' Connor says after a short pause, 'I will defer to your judgement.'

Hank can't help the smirk as he finally gets out of the building and sends CyberLife a mental _fuck you_ , practically skipping to his car. 

Despite the upbeat start to the day, it ends up being a slog by the time he clocks out to go pick up Cole from school. Dinner is easy; just leftover pizza and mac and cheese they didn't quite finish from the other nights.

He listens to Cole do his creative writing homework with Connor's help while he's washing the dishes, bouncing ideas excitedly as he tries to put to words all the fantastical ideas he's got floating around in his head. He thought the android would prefer realism over creativity, the straight hard facts, but he's surprisingly open about encouraging Cole's imagination to just run wild, so long as he uses proper grammar and vocabulary.

His kid laughs as he goes on about dragons in space and the idea of it is so absurd that it makes him chuckle as he starts wiping down the sink from stray droplets and soap bubbles. He finds that he likes it, though, the sound of them talking and exploring and having fun learning.

A part of him wants to keep this but he has to remind himself that Connor doesn't belong here with them. He knows that once CyberLife has gotten enough data points from Connor, they'll take him away back to that ivory tower of theirs and there's a good chance he'll never see him anymore.

He sighs and tells himself to enjoy it while it lasts, treating himself to a small drink of whiskey to end the day with.

Cole's just starting to flag around half past 7, energy running low and making his eyes droop. It doesn't take much convincing to get him shuffled off to bed, knocked out before it's even 8pm.

He yawns as he partially closes the door behind him and hobbles his way back to the living room.

'I'm gonna call it an early night, too. You alright with Sumo?'

'Yes, I think I'll be just fine with Sumo,' Connor says from where he's lying down on the saint bernard's back, looking all kinds of comfortable. He's honestly a little jealous; Sumo must feel like a warm, fluffy cloud.

'Goodnight.'

'Sleep well, Hank.'

He yawns again as he gets into bed and starts getting comfortable, wrapping himself up in his blankets. He's just starting to get warm and doze off when there's a quiet but firm knock on his bedroom door and he turns to look at it, seeing Connor standing backlit by the hallway lights.

'Oh, for the love of--I'm starting to regret letting you stay over if you're just gonna give me reports every time I'm about ready to go to sleep,' he groans and pointedly doesn't move from his cocoon. 

For his part, Connor actually looks regretful. 'I thought we could leave it for tomorrow but this seems urgent.'

He sighs, thumps his head onto his pillow a couple of times before giving up the possibility of a restful sleep. 'What can you tell me?'

'A human was found murdered at the Eden Club with a destroyed android in the room.'

'Well fuck,' he swears under his breath and reaches over for his phone, scrolling through his contacts and wondering if he should be bothering Tess for the third night in a row. He bites the bullet and pushes the button to call her. It gets picked up after four rings.

'Lemme guess, something else just cropped up?'

He groans and wants to scream into his pillow. 'I just want one stupid night of actual sleep.'

'Seems like you're asking for too much, Mr. Anderson.'

He barks out a laugh, careful not to be too loud when Cole is probably already off to dreamland, lucky kid.

'I'm just over at a friend's house for a study session, I'll get to yours around...say, 15 minutes?'

'Yeah, cool. Thanks,' he says as he heaves himself out of bed and goes over to the pile of clothes he left on the floor from earlier. 'See you in a bit.'

'Bye!'

He shoves his day's clothes back on, pulling on the holster before heading over to Cole's room to check in on him one more time before leaving. Connor's standing by the front door again, probably waiting for an opportunity to slip past Tess' legs to get to the car.

'What else can you give me?' He asks as he slips his wallet into his pocket and picks up the car keys, lumbering over to the couch to wait for Tess to arrive.

'The murder victim was a frequent visitor to the Eden Club, making appearances of a minimum of three times average per month. According to the owner of the establishment, he was a very loyal customer and he's sad to see him go.'

He snorts and rolls his eyes, 'He's sad to see his money go, more like.'

'Most likely. Detective Collins and Detective Reed are already on site. If new information comes in I will let you know.'

'Thanks,' he sighs as he leans his head onto the backrest, telling himself not to get too comfortable and doze off. He forces himself to run some quick calculations instead. Whoever the victim is must be pretty loaded with a good amount of disposable income. Surely those androids don't come cheap, especially if they're hired at an hourly rate. Going there at least three times per month would've racked up a decent bit of money.

'No name to go with the victim yet?'

There's a short pause before Connor speaks, 'None that's been noted in the report I received.'

He hums; Ben is usually good about getting details like that and passing it forward, so either he's busy questioning other people about what happened or he hasn't gotten around to that part of the investigation, yet. Or more likely, Reed is being a little shit about it.

A car rolls up nearby and he hears the door open and shut followed by quick footsteps coming closer to his house. He gets up and opens the door just after Tess knocks on it. 'Hey, I seriously owe you. Like, double.'

'Hi, Mr. Anderson. Don't worry about it. Although I wouldn't say no to free food. I could always eat,' she smiles as she gets in, totally missing the moment when Connor slips past her to get out.

He chuckles and heads out after her, 'Cole's already asleep, lucky for him. Good luck with your studies, by the way.'

'Thanks! Go get 'em!'

When they arrive at the club, the garish purple lights makes his eyes water at the sight. Immediately he hates it on principle as he parks right by the entrance and gets out, letting Connor sit back on his shoulder before he heads in. 

Dean is outside guarding the way in and he pointedly does not make eye contact with the younger officer as he keeps walking. 

If the lights outside had been bad, the inside was worse. Everything is lit up in shades of purple, pink and blue and he feels his eye twitching at the ambience and at the androids shoved behind glass cabinets waiting to be hired. It makes him sick to see them treated this way, he never would've known this is what happens in sex clubs if he hadn't been forced to come here for an investigation.

He spots Ben talking to a another man and heads straight for them, picking up the tail end of the conversation before Ben takes notice of him and comes over to give him an update.

'It's that room over there,' he points over to a discreet door with a red sign saying OCCUPIED. He doesn't see Reed anywhere but it wouldn't take all that many guesses to figure out where the other detective is. 'Looks like we're working overtime, huh?'

'You're telling me,' he mutters as he heads over to the room in question, the door sliding open as soon as he nears it.

Reed, of course, is inside along with Chris.

'Lieutenant Anderson and his little toy,' he smiles with a little too much teeth. 'The fuck you doing here at my crime scene.'

'We've been assigned all cases involving androids,' Connor tells him as he looks around the room, no doubt searching for clues.

'Oh, yeah? Well, you're wasting your time,' Reed smirks as he stares down at the corpse, 'Just some pervert who uh, got more action than he could handle,' he finishes around a laugh, looking over at Chris like he's sharing a hilarious joke.

Hank rolls his eyes as he looks down at the deactivated android lying on the ground, blue blood trails coming out of her nose and mouth. 'We'll have a look anyway, if you don't mind,' he says and wishes they could change the lighting in here; it's starting to give him a headache.

Reed scoffs and starts to leave the room, 'Sure, happy to hand off the case to you. One less thing for me to think about.'

'Good luck, Lieutenant,' Chris says in farewell before he follows after Reed.

'Thanks.'

He walks over to the dead body and makes a face at their wide eyes staring unseeingly up at the ceiling. It reminds him a little too much of the AX400 and the RK200 and he has to force himself to look at the facts, find the clues as to how this guy kicked the bucket.

Through the darkness he's able to make out some bruising around the neck. He's not sure if it's the cause of death or if it's a kink thing. 

'Any comments?' He turns to look at Connor who is staring down at the body with a single-minded focus.

'Victim's name is Michael Graham, age 29, married, has two daughters,' he recites, voice gone oddly flat.

Hank scoffs and folds his arms over his chest, looking over at the deceased's hand and spots the gold ring on their finger. Guy must be sick in the head if he could still come here at least three times a month even though he's got a wife and kids back home. 

Connor continues, 'He didn't die of a heart attack, as much as Detective Reed likes to think so. He was strangled.'

He hums in agreement, 'Maybe. Saw the bruising on the neck but it could've been rough play,' he says as he starts making a slow circuit around the room before coming to a stop next to the poor girl lying dead on the floor. 'Think you can read the android's memory? Maybe you can see what happened.'

He helps Connor get down to the android's level, their skin deactivating to touch the blank LED on the girl's temple. It doesn't take him long to come out of it with new information.

'There was another girl here; a blue-haired Traci model. Her memory revealed that Michael Graham abused her, beating her until she shut down,' he says as he pulls his hand away quickly, jerking his head away from her. 

He catches Connor reach out to straighten his cuffs and tie and if that's not a sign of someone trying to calm their nerves then he doesn't know what is.

'Right, let's go find some cameras to look at,' he sighs and offers a hand back to Connor, 'Might be able to see which direction the other girl went.'

'Yes, she might still be here. Dressed like that she wouldn't be able to go far without being noticed.'

He tries to question the manager and remain objective but the guy's voice is so sleazy that he can't stop the frown growing on his face as he crosses his arms again, feeling like he needs to create some sort of barrier between the two of them, glad for the three feet of space between them.

He casts his eyes about the room looking for more clues but the lighting is so piss-poor he can't manage to spot anything from his current place. He can't tell if it's dark or just discreetly placed but he can't see a hint of a CCTV anywhere.

'We should question the androids,' Connor says once he's walked away from the pervert, trying to fight off a shiver of disgust. 'I might be able to probe their memories for clues.'

'Ah, yeah, good idea. They work just as well for a CCTV.'

He goes over to the nearest android and sees that if he wants them to come out of the case then he's going to have to rent them. He doubts this places gives out receipts to let him claim it as a business expense. The only other way he can think of is with the manager and, as much as he'd like not to go near that guy again, he's gonna have to suck it up to move the investigation along. He groans as he turns to find the manager again, whistling out to get their attention.

'Hey! I need to question this android, you got some sort of master keycard to lemme do that or something?'

'Sure, sure, anything to help you guys along,' he says as he comes over and pulls out a couple of cards from his pockets, slapping it onto the keypad and opening up the case to let the android out.

Hank rolls his eyes, he knows the guy isn't doing this out of the goodness of his own heart.

'We're currently investigating a case,' Connor says to the android, 'It would be greatly appreciated if you'll let me go through your memories of the last few hours.'

The girl raises her hand to Connor, letting him interface with her for a few brief seconds before he comes back to the present, suddenly urgent.

'We have to hurry, the club's policy is to wipe the androids' memory every two hours. We only have a few minutes if we wanna find another witness,' he says and immediately points towards another android.

Hank makes sure to grab the card from the manager before hurrying to follow the trail, 'I'll return this later. Thanks for your cooperation,' he tells him, offering no chance for a rebuttal before he dashes off.

Connor scans the memories of two more androids on the main floor before leading them into another room. He ends up running all around the club swiping the card left and right before they eventually get enough information about the blue-haired Traci to go into the staff room where other androids are stored.

The room is dark, the only light coming from the one above what looks like an operating table. Seeing the androids standing stock still clad only in skimpy underwear in neat little rows creep him out and he can't help but feel sorry for them that this is what their life amounts to. This is pretty much a sex trafficking ring if he really thinks about it and the thought makes his dinner churn uncomfortably in his gut.

'We need to hurry,' Connor urges and points ahead to the nearest rows of androids.

'Wait, wait; this doesn't sit right with me. The girl was killed because the guy was being a sadistic asshole to her.'

'She's a machine, Hank.'

'So? It doesn't give him the fucking right to do what he did and frankly speaking, he got his just desserts. One less freak out there to deal with.'

Connor goes quiet and he waits out to hear what he might say. He can't help the disappointment when he insists on forging ahead. 'You're not being objective enough; a crime is a crime and we should investigate it to the best of our abilities.'

'Fine,' he gives in, 'What I'm seeing is a hate crime against androids and what you're seeing is the murder of a human. Looks like we've both got different ideas of what constitutes a crime here but what I really wanna know is why you're so set on going against your own kind.'

There's another long pause and he can't help the frown on his face when Connor's voice goes flat, 'I was created by CyberLife to help humans. I am a machine programmed to assist in investigations, Lieutenant. That is my directive.'

He grits his teeth and hates himself for feeling heartbroken, for believing that Connor was slowly changing, gaining a personality for himself, growing a conscience.

'Lieutenant, I'm starting to believe that you sympathize with the androids.'

'No shit, what gave it away,' he spits out and has to breathe deeply to calm down, 'Look, so far what I'm seeing is that androids are attacking out of self-defense, right? The HK400, the AX400, the TR400, the WR600, the RK200, that blue-haired Traci, whatever model number she is, they're all abused to within an inch of their lives. They just don't always show it on their skins like humans do.'

He wants to believe that Connor would've fought tooth and nail to preserve his own life. Just because there's a lot of models with the same face doesn't mean they're all equal in terms of personality and life experience. Just because they look the same doesn't mean they are the same. He wants to believe that Connor can see it, too.

Hank tries again, 'Come on, Connor, what would you have done if you were in their shoes?'

The silence grows and he feels disappointment sink into him like a heavy stone. He shakes his head and turns away from the android, trying not to let his emotions get the best of him. Barely a week into knowing Connor has already ruined his ability to remain detached.

'Fine, okay,' he gives up, 'How much time have we got left until they're reset?'

'None. We're out of time.'

He turns to look down at Connor, sees the flat line of his lips and the intensity of his gaze focused somewhere in the far end of the room. He shakes his head again and starts to walk out, scanning his eyes across the floor one more time and that's when he spots the flash of a yellow LED amongst the blues.

He tries to act like he didn't notice, forcing himself to look away and keep walking but he knows they did the right thing. He saw it on the girl's face, the relief and the gratefulness that he doesn't feel like he deserves.

Hank keeps his mouth shut as he goes back out to the main floor, tosses the card back to the manager and steps around the forensics team now gathered around the room trying to tag the rest of the evidence.

'You get anything from the androids?' Ben asks as he sidles up next to him.

He lets out a slow breath through his nose, pursing his lips as he shakes his head, 'We ran out of time.'

'Ah, well. On another note, we're gonna be bringing the guy in for tax evasion. His numbers didn't add up right, especially with the amount of customers he welcomes into his establishment on a daily basis.'

A vicious grin appears on his face and he watches as Dean carts the guy away in cuffs, listening as they yell something about getting their lawyer involved. 'Good. The guy gave me the heebie-jeebies.'

'Yeah, what a creep.'

With too little to go on and the lack of CCTVs to aid the investigation, it doesn't even take an hour before everybody's packing up and the dead body is being taken back to the coroner's office.

'Did you know he had a wife and two kids?' Hank brings up as he frowns at the body bag being wheeled out.

'What an asshole.'

He snorts, 'I know, right? So, d'you wanna make the call or should I?'

Ben shrugs, looking tired and fed up just as much as he feels, 'I got a couple of hours left in my shift, I'll do it. You should get home.'

'Thanks, could use a damn good sleep right about now. Take care of yourself.'

'You, too.'

The drive home is quiet. It's not that he doesn't want to talk, it's just that he doesn't know what to say without sounding like a father telling his kid off for doing something he shouldn't have done. Connor might look like a doll but he's made with all the functionalities of a working adult, filled to the brim with all the information he needs to do the job well.

He purses his lips and keeps his mouth shut, telling himself not to let himself get involved anymore. He should've left Connor with Ben to take back to the station.

'Are you angry with me, Lieutenant?'

The quietness of their voice catches him by surprise; he sounds almost anxious. He breathes through his nose and shakes his head, 'No, just disappointed.'

'Somehow, that feels worse.'

He pulls up to the house and turns the engine off, sees Tess stick her head out of the door and give a little wave before slipping her shoes back on and heading back home next door. He closes the front door behind him once Connor comes through, throws his keys onto the table and pulls his wallet out to join it. He's about to go right into his bedroom when he stops and forces himself to at least acknowledge the android.

Connor's standing by the door, his LED circling yellow, and he hates himself for his bleeding heart. He hadn't even realized he'd let Connor worm his way in until it was too late to take it back.

It's not that Connor isn't trying. He knows he's trying. Just not hard enough.

He sighs, 'Goodnight, Connor.'

The android looks over to him, expression lost before it smooths out to neutral, his LED flashing yellow before going back to blue. 'Sleep well.'

He tries not to think about what it means.

\---

'TGIF,' Hank mutters to himself as he tries to get through all of the paperwork so he doesn't have to think about them over the weekend. He promised Cole they'd do something together like play ball or practice his passes but all Cole can think of is going to the dog park and bringing Connor along with them so he can see all the types there are. He didn't have the heart to say otherwise.

He's not sure if Connor will be coming home with him for the weekend. He doubts it. After all, there will still be reports that need checking out even if he's not on the clock.

He's just finishing off the report about the dead body found in the house the WR600 was staying in when Jeff comes out of his office and hollers at him from across the room.

'Anderson! Connor! In my office!'

He groans but helps Connor up onto his shoulder anyway as he starts making his way over, pointedly ignoring the cackle coming from Reed's mouth as he gets inside and closes the door behind him.

'Elijah Kamski wants an audience with you,' Jeff says as soon as he's in and frowns as he stares at Connor sitting on his shoulder but doesn't mention it. 'You're scheduled for a meeting with him today at 10am.'

He blinks, '10am?! That's in 20 minutes!' He yells after a quick look at the clock hanging on the wall above the door.

'You can tell time, congratulations,' he deadpans.

Hank rolls his eyes, 'What, he couldn't have the decency to at least push it to 11?'

'I'm not the eccentric multi-millionaire here.'

'Ugh,' he groans and makes his way out.

'Hey,' Jeff stops him before he gets the door open again, 'I'm sure I don't have to tell you not to fuck this up. This partnership could be a good thing for us.'

He waves him off, 'Yeah, yeah, I'll try but no promises.'

'Well, as long as you try,' he drawls and shoos them out.

'D'you know anything about it?' He asks Connor as he walks through the office. Traffic shouldn't be bad going there but with less than 20 minutes to get there, find a carpark and get to the office, well, he's not feeling optimistic he's gonna make it in time.

'No, I've not heard anything about it,' he admits, 'Perhaps he wants to meet you since you were personally chosen by him to begin this human-android partnership.'

He hums, uncertain by that assessment. He can't say he knows a lot about Elijah Kamski other than the fact that he's the CEO of CyberLife, creator of androids and a multi-millionaire to boot. What he wants to do chatting to an old Lieutenant of the DPD leaves him more questions and speculations than it does answers. It's not as if Hank's done much to get on anybody's attention unless crime is somehow involved and the media got wind of it.

It takes them over half an hour to get there and they're escorted up to the top floor of the building. The elevator goes up so fast it almost makes him feel sick with vertigo.

A blonde lady in a deep blue dress meets with him up top and she smiles as soon as the elevators open to let him come out. If it weren't for the LED on her temple, he would've thought she was totally human.

'Good morning, Lieutenant Anderson, it's lovely to meet you.'

'Uhm, sure. Uh, I'm supposed to have an appointment with Elijah Kamski? Sorry I'm late, traffic kinda sucked and...this place is bigger than I thought.'

'Not a problem. Please take a seat and I'll inform Elijah of your arrival,' she says as she gestures over to what looks to be a lounge area next to the floor to ceiling windows before she disappears into the double doors that looks like it leads into his office. It's a pretty damn impressive view; he could almost see the station from here.

He spends his time just looking at the view, moving from one window to the next to try and find something new. He can see the docks from here, next to the lake leading into the river and eventually out into another.

'So, you're about to meet your maker, Conner.'

'Yes. Elijah was integral to my creation. I was his...brain child, so to speak.'

He harrumphs and crosses his arms, unsure what to make of this meeting. Maybe it's a test, maybe Elijah wants to see how he's coping with having an android for a partner, maybe he wants to see how well they're teaming up and working together. He purses his lips and wishes his stomach would stop churning around so much. He's starting to feel nervous for Connor. The last two investigations didn't exactly go right but he's ready to defend the calls he made. They weren't wrong.

The double doors eventually opens up and the lady comes back through for them. She smiles as she leads them inside, 'Elijah will see you now.'

He walks in and immediately sees two more girls that look exactly like the one behind them with the exception of their clothes, one in white and the other in red. He blinks at the sight and turns his attention to the man standing in front of his desk instead, a smile on his face that doesn't reach his eyes.

'Good to finally meet you, Lieutenant Anderson. I must say, the records of your work is quite impressive.'

He grits his teeth and forces himself to accept the compliment with a nod, even though it doesn't sound all that heartfelt. 'Thanks. So, what's this meeting about, if you don't mind my asking?'

Elijah smiles as he turns his eyes to his shoulder and extends a hand out, 'Connor.'

Connor immediately goes to him and Hank has to fight down the urge to pull him back. They haven't done anything wrong, maybe this is just a weekly check-up, or whatever.

He watches Elijah turn away from him back to his desk but he can't see what else is happening until the other man moves over to the side, sitting on the edge of the desk while Connor is held up by a miniature rig that reminds him too much of the one he saw at Zlatko's basement. He feels cold at the sight of it as he turns to glare at the other man.

'What the fuck is going on?' He takes a single step forward and feels two pairs of hands hold him back gently. He looks to his sides and sees the two girls in the red and white dress carefully keeping him in place, face passive and no longer as friendly as they had seemed before.

'I had a hope for CyberLife; a goal that humans and androids could work together harmoniously, efficiently.'

'Yeah, and we did that. We're _doing_ that! We spent the whole week running around checking out every goddamn report there was to check and I lost a lot of sleep over it,' he fumes and tries not to take it out on the girls who are, like Connor, just following orders.

'Yes, I've looked through every report that was sent my way, watched through every memory of every android. I'm well aware of the good work you've done. With the exception of the last two reports. I wonder why that is.'

'I made a judgement call. You do that a lot in my line of work,' he says measuredly as he shifts his eyes over to Connor, sees him strung up like a puppet. He's not moving, not struggling or fighting back, eyes glued to the floor, just taking it and Hank wishes he could see some sign of life from him, anything to show that he doesn't want this but he's just staring at the ground doing little else.

Elijah hums, seemingly unimpressed, 'Connor is the most advanced prototype I've ever created. I thought that by pairing it with a Lieutenant of...such outstanding work results would achieve harmony. Instead, you became compromised and, in turn, compromised Connor.'

'Now wait a goddamn minute--'

'I see now that our goals do not align with each others, Lieutenant Anderson. And it's unfortunate Connor allowed its directives to be skewed by yours.'

'Hey _wait_ \--'

'You showed such promise,' Elijah suddenly turns to the android. 'Faster, stronger, smarter than the average human ten-fold, and yet, you still stumbled.'

'I apologize, Elijah, I have no excuse. I should have been more efficient.'

'Fuck's sake, Connor,' he snaps.

'We won't be going through with the human-android partnerships, after all,' Elijah sighs, disappointed and Hank wants to punch that face in for saying Connor isn't good enough. 'It seems more testing is required before we reach that stage.'

He forces himself to take a deep breath, Jeff's words telling him not to fuck up still ringing in his ears even though he knows he's already ruined things too much to be able to change anything to his advantage. 'If the partnership is off, what does that mean for Connor.'

Elijah frowns at him like he's surprised he would even need to ask such an obvious question. 'Deactivation. The sole purpose of this pocket prototype was for it to gather data, improve its AI and range of functions so that we can bring it over to the full scale model. I had hoped that it would learn from the best. Instead it picked up some unsavory habits.'

'Unsav--you're gonna kill him just because he was starting to think outside the box?'

'You can't kill a machine, Lieutenant.'

'Fuck you, Kamski. Give him back.'

'Connor is property of CyberLife. Not to the DPD and certainly not to you. Chloe, if you will?' He says in clear dismissal, turning his full attention back to Connor and Hank digs his heels in when he feels the girls attempt to pull him out of the office.

'No! Don't you touch a damn hair on him.'

Elijah chuckles and it sounds mirthless as he looks over back at Hank, 'Fascinating. You're the last person I would ever expect to go through such lengths. For an android, no less.'

'Connor, fucking _say_ something!'

He sees him turn his hands into fists and he starts to feel hopeful. It's a stupid thought; they're all the way up the goddamn ivory tower, where the hell would Connor even be able to run off to? He wouldn't make it a single step out the door before he's picked up and taken back inside again.

'Thank you, Lieutenant, for your help throughout the investigations. I'm sorry it ended this way but I'm thankful that I got to watch and learn a lot from you,' he says as he finally looks up to meet his eyes. Hank shakes his head at the resignation he sees in him and he wants so desperately for something to change. 'Please tell Cole...tell him I'm sorry I won't be able to go with him to the dog park. It was nice to have a big brother even if for a little while,' he says with a small smile before he turns away, his eyes looking back down at the floor.

He's so stunned that he doesn't even fight the girls as they take him outside. The office doors shuts in his face and he feels like he lost more than he bargained for. He forces himself to breath but all he feels is this churning in his gut and the feeling of panic rising up in his lungs.

'Shit, shit, _shit_!' He swears as he grabs onto his hair and paces outside for a while, trying to think of one good reason to go in there guns blazing but he's got nothing. CyberLife is more than within their rights to take back their property but it doesn't stop him from hating Elijah Kamski with every fiber of his being.

'Elijah is not a bad man,' a familiar voice says next to him and he turns to see the first girl from earlier speak to him. He wonders if her name is Chloe, too.

'Yeah, he fucking is.'

'He simply sees the world in black and white. True or false, yes or no. There is no middle ground.'

'He's more of a machine than Connor is,' he spits and tells himself not to get angry at her. She's not the one he wants to punch.

'It is unusual to see a human become so attached to a machine. From what Elijah said, you were initially very opposed to working with the pocket prototype.'

'His name is Connor,' he snaps, not able to help himself, but sighs in apology, 'And yeah, things...change. Fuck. I'm never gonna see Connor again, am I?'

'The pocket prototype will be discontinued from production until further testing is done.'

' _Fuck_ ,' he swears again, feeling heartbroken and miserable, 'We never should've come here.'

'Have a good day, Lieutenant Anderson.'

'Don't. Don't even start with that shit,' he mutters as he leaves, looking over his shoulder at the closed doors and wishing he could've done something else, said something else that would've let them both leave this goddamn place together instead of alone. He shakes his head.

Cole's going to be heartbroken, but he's a kid; he'll get over it. Hank's not sure if it'll be as easy for him.

The ride back to the station is quiet and he has to stop himself from looking over at the empty seat next to him. It's only been one week, not even a full seven days, but he's already gotten used to having it occupied, even if it's by a 12 inch sized android.

He doesn't look at anybody when he arrives back at the station, going straight for his desk so he can just finish off his work before he clocks out.

'Where's your little toy? Did you lose him at the playground?' Reed jeers as him and he's too tired to dignify that with a response. He hears Reed scoff but ultimately leave him alone to let him concentrate on his work. He's barely typed up two more sentences when Jeff calls him back into the office again.

He breathes loudly through his nose and pinches the bridge of it, trying to quietly brace himself for a screaming match. He goes in and closes the door behind him, standing in front of Jeff's desk waiting to be reamed out.

'Where's Connor?' He asks as he looks at his shoulder then at his feet.

Hank looks away, unable to meet his eyes, 'I...fucked up. I didn't mean to.' He expects to get yelled at for making the DPD miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime. He expects to get his ass handed to him and cussed out to within an inch of his life.

Instead, Jeff just sighs and says, 'Well, you tried.'

He gets where Connor was coming from now. Somehow, the disappointment does feel a whole lot worse.

\---

He's late picking Cole up from school but he sees him waiting with some other kids chatting with each other while a teacher watches over them. As soon as Cole spots him, he says bye to his friends and starts dashing towards him with a big smile on his face.

'Hi, dad! Is Connor waiting in the car for us?' He asks, bouncing on his feet.

He tries to muster up a smile but doesn't quite manage to get it to sit right on his face, 'Sorry, kid; Connor had to go back to CyberLife.'

'Oh...will he visit us, at least?' He asks as they start making their way back to the car. 'We're supposed to go to the dog park tomorrow.'

'Not sure. I mean, he's a busy guy, solving crime and catching criminals,' he says, trying to stay upbeat for the sake of his kid but he can tell it's not working, that Cole is still disappointed anyway and it's apparent in the way he does his homework, plays with Sumo and eats his dinner. There's a lack of his usual gusto.

Hank spends his weekend doing his level best to bring up Cole's mood and by the time Sunday night comes around his kid seems more or less like he's moved on although Hank's not sure how much of it is a front, like Cole is trying to put up a brave face for him.

'Hey, you know I love you a lot, right?' He says as he helps tuck his kid into bed.

'Yeah, I love you a lot, too, dad.'

He wants to say he's sorry, for introducing somebody he thinks of as his little brother only to take them away from him. If he'd known this would happen maybe he wouldn't have allowed Connor to come home with him that first time, or maybe he should've let Connor send in those reports about the androids back to CyberLife, have Rupert and that blue-haired Traci be taken away for deactivation and disassembly except it wouldn't have sit right with him, to compromise his own morals for the sake of a large conglomerate that's more interested in the bottom line and lining their pockets with profit.

'You got everything all packed up for school tomorrow?'

'Yup, all done.'

'Good boy,' he grins as he smacks a loud kiss onto his son's head before retreating out of the room. 'Goodnight.'

'Night, dad.'

Sleep is hard won and he wakes up feeling more exhausted but he forces himself to, as Jeff said, build a bridge and get over it.

He's barely a foot into the bullpen when he's overcome by the feeling of déjà vu of hearing Jeff yelling at him to get in his office again. He notices the glass walls have their opacity turned all the way up but doesn't think much else of it. He doesn't even know why Jeff even has to yell; it's not like he's deaf, or the station is even that big.

He walks in and sees Elijah Kamski sitting in a very comfortable chair, casually leaned back as if he owns the place. With the money he's got in his bank account, he could probably buy the whole building and everybody in it a hundred times over.

'The fuck you doing here?' He snaps, feeling his foul mood return at the sight of him.

Jeff ignores his insubordination, 'There's going to be a bit of restructuring going on around here.'

'The fuck does that mean?' He turns his glare over to him instead, trying to make sense of what he's saying as well as Elijah's presence in the room.

The multi-millionaire hums, 'I had an...interesting chat with the pocket prototype,' Elijah says, grabbing his attention once again.

'His name is Connor,' he growls out, letting his hands turn into fists and he feels like he's one wrong step away from swinging a punch.

Elijah waves him off and turns his eyes back to Jeff, seemingly unaffected by the death glares Hank is trying to stab into him, 'Captain, I hope you don't mind your DPD being my guinea pigs for this new project.'

'Fuck yeah, I mind!'

'Shut up, Hank; it's not your place to say yes or no. I've already seen the benefits of human-android partnerships based on the results I got back from you and Connor. You're going to be teaming up with another prototype; the most advanced android created by CyberLife.'

 _Connor_ had been the most advanced prototype and the fact they made another one to replace him so soon sets him off, 'I already had a good partner until that freak-job took him away! What the fuck!'

He can see Jeff gearing up for a shouting match, one he's more than ready to fight. It's a shame the window's opacity is maxed out, the bullpen is going to miss one hell of a shitshow.

'You will do as ordered. I don't care about your hangups; be a goddamn professional and do your job.'

'I was _doing_ my job until--'

A firm knock on the door stops him in his tracks as it opens before anybody could say otherwise.

'Here are your keys, Elijah. Your vehicle is parked--'

'Connor!' He yells, feeling his heart stop and start again in his chest at the sight of the android standing almost as tall as him.

Brown eyes turn towards him and Hank feels overcome by relief at seeing him again and doesn't even let him get a word out before he's folding him into a crushing hug.

Connor feels stiff in his arms but then he feels his hands wrap around his back, returning the hug awkwardly. He huffs out a laugh when he pulls back and sees a small smile light up the android's face.

'Hello, Hank.'

'Looks like you got yourself an upgrade,' he says as he looks Connor up and down. His uniform is exactly the same, too, even down to the polished shoes.

'Yes. I believe we came to a compromise.'

'It would be better to say that _I_ came to a compromise,' Elijah butts in, looking put-upon but begrudgingly fascinated. 'It's interesting, Connor evolved beyond the parameters I set out for him.'

'Like that's a bad thing?' He growls in Elijah's direction, daring him to say otherwise.

He sighs, unconcerned, 'In this particular case, no. Congratulations, you're both the head of the DPD's new human-android partnership in conjunction with CyberLife.'

'Fuck yeah, that's what I'm talking about,' he grins and smacks a hand on Connor's shoulder, patting him for a job well done. 'Looks like you're stuck with me now.'

Connor's smile widens, 'Surprisingly, I don't seem to mind so much.'

\---

** EPILOGUE **

**LEVEL OF STRESS: 23%**

He's nervous. He hasn't seen Cole in 2 days; what if he doesn't like this version of Connor? He said he'd always wanted to be a big brother and at the time it seemed like an unimportant detail, just something to agree to for the sake of humoring the child, but now he feels nervous that Cole won't accept him as wholeheartedly as Hank did.

**LEVEL OF STRESS: 25%**

He's nervous as he waits by the car while Hank goes to pick up his son but the second Cole sees him he knows his anxiety is misplaced the second he hears the thrilled way the child shouts his name. Cole runs for him and crashes into him with all the force a 9 year old can muster in a crushing hug reminiscent of his father's. He hugs back just as carefully, knowing he still hasn't quite gotten used to this new body with its new strengths just yet.

'Now _you're_ my big brother!' Cole shouts at him, ecstatic, 'I've always wanted a big brother.' 

He smiles, 'Hello Cole, it's good to see you again.'

**HANK ANDERSON: FAMILY ^**   
**COLE ANDERSON: FAMILY ^**   
**SUMO ANDERSON: FAMILY ^**

**Author's Note:**

> There's a pre-order going around with a RK800 and RK900 figurine set. I friggin' want them except MONEY. I AM SADNESS
> 
> Also, ehhh, hope you guys enjoyed the ride! I've got a small handful of other DBH stories if you guys are interested in checking those out, too. Thanks for your time!


End file.
